Until the End of Time
by Peetato1989
Summary: Prior to the books, Percy, Luke and Nico meet each other on the streets after having run away from home. The 3 become close friends, but that friendship is shattered when Nico is murdered by Zeus after he becomes aware of Nico's existence. Hades sends Percy and Luke to Camp Halfblood, where they make allies and enemies in their upcoming fight for revenge against Olympus. Percy/Luke
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: I do not own _The Percy Jackson and the Olympians_ series of books nor any of the characters within the series itself. I do not own any characters and/or works created by the amazing Rick Riordan. I write for fun and not to make a profit.

**Full Summary for ****_Until the End of Time_**: When Percy was seven years old, his mother, Sally Jackson was murdered by his stepdad Gabe Ugliano. While running away from home, Percy is attacked by a Fury and is saved by Luke Castellan who has also run away from home. Percy and Luke band together to stay alive on the streets and eventually meet Nico di Angelo who has escaped from the Lotus Casino. After Nico is killed by one of Zeus' lightning bolts, Percy and Luke meet Hades who sends the two to Camp Halfblood for their safety. With help from both Hades and Kronos, Percy and Luke will join together and seek their revenge against the Olympians including their parents who have abandoned them. This story will loosely follow the plots of the _Percy Jackson and the Olympians_ series of books ranging from _The Lightning Thief _to _The Last Olympian._

**Eventual Pairings**: Luke/Percy (others to be decided) - the Luke/Percy pairing is a bit down the road yet

**Warnings**: Slash, Male/Male Love, Explicit Language, Violence, Gore, NSFW, Possible Character Bashing, Rated T

**Author's Note**: Hi folks - Peetato1989 here. _Until the End of Time_ is going to be my first published work of Fanfiction. Although I've written Fanfiction in the past for my own enjoyment, this is the first time that I'm going to be publishing one of my works. I currently have this entire story planned out. I expect it will be about 30 chapters and the story will roughly follow the plot of the _Percy Jackson and the Olympians_ series of books. My goal is to have this fic completed in 52 weeks. As such, I will have a new chapter out every 1-2 weeks. Hope you enjoy and please REVIEW!

"Blah Blah" = Spoken Words

_Blah Blah_ = Character's Thoughts

**CHAPTER ONE**

It had started out like any other Monday morning. Percy Jackson's mother, Sally, had woken him at seven am so that he could start his preparations for the school week.

Rolling out of bed from between his blue sheets and blanket, seven year-old Percy rubbed his eyes, grabbed a change of clothes and headed towards the bathroom. Moving quietly as possible, so not as to disturb Gabe, his stepfather, who had passed out in a drunken stupor the night before, Percy stepped in the shower and began washing himself.

Percy lived in New York City in a two bedroom apartment with his mother, Sally Jackson, and his stepfather, Gabe Ugliano. The apartment was small, dimly lit and could only be accessed by taking six steps of winding stairs that creaked with each step. While Sally made a decent living as the owner of Sweets of America - a candy store in Midtown Manhattan - Gabe did not work and spent the majority of Sally's earnings on liquor, beer, and his bookie and poker nights with his so called "friends." Unfortunately, his poker skills were on par with his parenting skills, causing him to lose far more often than he won.

Percy despised Gabe and bemoaned the fact that his mom had married him. Percy had always been taught that two married people should love each other, and yet it was obvious to him that there were no feelings of affection between his mother and his stepfather. Gabe had simply married his mother to take advantage of her money, and Percy had yet to discover the reason why she had agreed to the marriage.

Sally often spoke with fondness of Percy's real father, Don, a sailor who had been lost at sea while crab fishing off the coast of Alaska. Though the two had never gotten married, as Don had been lost at sea while Sally was pregnant, Percy got the impression that they truly loved each other. While there was not one photo of his mother and Gabe together in the apartment, there were numerous photo albums containing pictures of her and Don's time together. In addition, despite Gabe's incessant complaining, Sally and Gabe's bedroom contained numerous mementos of the sea - a small silver trident, a model of the lost city of Atlantis and most curiously, a small statue of the Greek God of the Sea Poseidon.

From what she had told Percy of him, Don was the polar opposite of Gabe. His mother had been vacationing at the family's small beach house in Montauk, and Don lived there when he wasn't fishing. The two had first laid eyes on each other while she was dining at a small Italian restaurant. Don was the perfect gentleman - a handsome six foot tall man with windswept black hair and sea green eyes that Percy inherited. The two had dated for three months before Percy was conceived. Although his father had offered to move her to his home in Montauk so she could rest while pregnant, Sally was a modern self-sufficient woman who wanted to support herself. After her vacation, she went back to New York City, and two months later tragedy struck when Don was lost at sea.

Gabe on the other hand was a short, portly man with an oversized stomach and three chins that jiggled every time he took a step. He never showered and rarely used deodorant. Because of this, he constantly smelled like a mixture of stale booze, smoke, and rotting fast food. He also had a temper and although Sally prevented him from ever laying a hand on him, Percy himself had seen many black and blue marks on his mother after she and Gabe had argued.

Sally and Gabe had met while the former was working on her job at Sweets on America. Taking advantage of the stop's liberal policy about free samples, Gabe would come in three to four days a week and eat "lunch" at the store. Although the workers were repulsed by his pungent odor, torn clothing and hateful demeanor, Sally refused to have him kicked out. Four days after meeting him, she had asked him to move in with her and Percy, and two weeks later, she asked the man to marry her. Elated to have access to Sally's income and apartment, Gabe agreed, and less than one month after first stepping into Sweets on America, they had married.

**UNTIL THE END OF TIME**

Ten minutes after getting into the shower, Percy stepped out and dried himself off using his favorite fluffy blue towel. Putting on his clothes: a pair of jeans, a blue t-shirt with images of fish swimming, a pair of socks, and his Converses, he walked towards the kitchen where his mother already had breakfast sitting out on the kitchen table.

"Good morning Percy," Sally greeted with a broad smile. "I made your favorite this morning - blue pancakes, bacon and a side of toast with blue butter. Eat quickly though; I want to make sure that you're gone before Gabe gets up. I'm giving him a ride to his bookie and he has to be there by nine am." As an afterthought, to address the seriousness of the situation, she quickly added, "He lost over a thousand dollars on last night's Knicks vs Heat game. He's going to be in a foul mood this morning."

Sally was a striking woman with curly brown hair and a smile that never seemed to leave her face. Standing about five and a half feet tall, she had tanned skin year round and a cheerful demeanor that could put nearly anyone at ease. She doted on Percy and would do anything to insure that Perry's grin never left his face. In his opinion, she was the best mother ever.

"Thanks Mom," Percy replied with his trademark toothy grin. Finishing his first bite of blue pancakes, he added: "Are you taking me to school today, or do I have to take the bus?"

The woman's smile temporarily left her face an was replaced by a small frown. "You know that I'd love to honey but if Gabe doesn't make it to his bookie by nine, there's going to be hell to pay. Take the bus this morning, and I'll make sure to pick you up after school. I'll even clean the car so you don't have to smell Gabe's odor," she added with a wry grin.

Finishing his last bite of breakfast, Percy hopped off his chair and ran to give his mom a hug. "It's okay, Mom," he said. Pausing for a brief second, as if contemplating his next words, he slowly added, "Why can't it be just you and me. We don't need Smelly Gabe. He just sits around all day playing poker, drinking beer and smoking his disgusting cigars. Things were so much more fun before you two got married."

Giving Percy a sad smile, she replied, "I know it may not make sense, but I married Gabe for a reason. I may not love him, but he does more for this family than he ever will know. You'll understand some day - I promise. Now, go finish getting ready so you can head to school."

With a thoughtful frown on his face, the black haired boy walked to his room and began to pack his backpack with his homework he had completed the night before. As he was finishing zipping his backpack, he heard a loud set of footsteps and out of the corner of his eye, Percy saw Gabe walk out of his mother's room.

Groaning to himself, Percy thought, _Great. Gabe's up. He's lost money which means he's going to be extra nasty and mean. Hopefully, I can make it out the door without him seeing me._

Putting on his jacket and zipping it up, Percy prepared himself to walk down the hallway and sneak out the front door. Luck was not on his side, however, as the next thing he heard was Gabe's raised voice yelling at his mother.

"Goddammit!" Gabe bellowed. "I told you not to make breakfast for the little shit! He can get free breakfast at school. I owe my bookie twelve hundred dollars yet here you are wasting my hard earned money on blue pancakes and bacon for the brat! The little shit has to learn to fend for himself. He's eating breakfast at school from now on!"

Hearing his mother trying to calm down Gabe and deciding to wait for the argument to blow over before heading to school, Percy busied himself with reorganizing his backpack. Ten minutes later, his stepfather was still screaming at his wife who was still trying to calm him down. Realizing that he would have to leave soon if he didn't want to be late for school (and he _really_ didn't want to be late. He was only in second grade, and he had already been kicked out eight schools due to his ADHD and dyslexia!), Percy put his backpack on and prepared to make the trek from his room to the front door. Before he could even take his first step, though, he heard the sounds of flesh hitting metal followed by a loud thud.

Throwing caution to the wind, the boy ran from his bedroom into the kitchen. The first thing he saw was red. There were little splatters of blood all over the kitchen cabinets and counters. Sally was lying on the floor with her eyes closed, while Gabe was leaning over her breathing heavily, a frying pan in one hand and a bloodied knife in the other.

High on adrenaline, Percy raced towards to his mother. For the first time, Gabe noticed his presence in the room. "What do you want, you little shit?" he slurred out. Despite it only being 7am, Percy could smell alcohol and smoke on Gabe's breath.

"What did you do to my Mom?! You're a monster," Percy shouted, his eyes filling with tears.

Although he had witnessed the adults fighting frequently before, Percy had never seen a scene like this. The two would typically argue for ten or fifteen minutes before Gabe decided that time spent arguing was time that could be better spent drinking or playing poker. With a muttered apology, the man would slink off back to his drink or game, and then the cycle would repeat itself two hours later. Although there was the occasional slap or raised fist, Gabe never was violent enough to cause any lasting damage beyond a small bruise. Percy had never seen his stepfather this out of control before in his life, and he was scared.

Mustering up his courage, Percy slowly walked towards his downed mother. Carefully watching Gabe out of the corner of his eye, Percy moved closer and closer to his mother's form. Before, his view had been partially blocked by the kitchen table, but now with the table no longer obstructing his view, the boy was greeted by a grisly scene.

His mother was laying on the floor, her white blouse and green top spattered with droplets of blood. Small cuts littered her arms which had clearly been used a barrier between her face and her husband's knife. The most gruesome thing about the situation, however, was the state of her head. The right side of it was completely smashed in, and small bits of bone were protruding out of her skin. Without even checking her pulse, Percy knew that his mom was dead.

As if suddenly coming to the same conclusion, Gabe turned towards Percy and slurred out, "It looks like it's just you and me, you little shit. Your mom's dead. Who are you going to cry to now? Who's gonna protect you from big, bad, Smelly Gabe?"

Percy quickly realized he had two options. He could either run for the door while hoping to make it down the stairs before Gabe could catch up with him in his drunken state, or he could stay and fight the man. After all, Percy was the only witness to the fact that his stepfather had killed his mother. If Gabe managed to remove him from the picture, the disgusting man would have a lot easier time pinning his wife's death on someone else. Therefore, Percy knew that he would either have to run for his life or stay and fight Gabe.

Before he could make his decision though, Gabe let out a loud groan and vomited on his hairy chest. Turning to face his stepfather, Percy saw him fall to the floor, passing out in an alcohol and stress induced coma. Wanting to make sure that the man would stay down, Percy looked around for a heavy object and saw the giant frying pan in Gabe's hand. After prying it from his grip, the boy used it to smack him in the head twice.

_That ought to keep him down 'til I can escape_, Percy thought as he ran to his bedroom. Emptying out his backpack, Percy began to refill his pack with survival goods and things he would need on the run. Although Percy had every intention of going to the police, he knew that things tended to go wrong when he was involved. Thus, it was better to be safe than sorry.

For the next ten minutes, Percy frantically pack his bag. After grabbing a few sets of clothes and toiletries, Percy ran into his mother's room to look for her emergency stash of cash. He knew she kept it in a small jar made of sand dollars, and after finding the jar, he counted the money inside. There was $387 in bills and a Ziploc baggie full of loose change. He grabbed both the bills and coins, and after getting back to his room he stuffed them into his backpack.

Realizing that Gabe had already been passed out for twenty minutes, Percy decided it was time to go. He put on his jacket, and walked back into the kitchen to say goodbye to his mother. Feeling tears begin to well up in his eyes, Percy crouched over the woman's dead body. "Mom," he said, tears streaming down his face, "I loved you so much. Smelly Gabe won't get away with this. I'm going to make sure he pays for this someday, and I'm going to grow up big and strong and make you proud."

Laying one final kiss on her forehead, Percy stood up and headed out the front door. As Percy began walking down the six winding steps of stairs, he began to plan what to do next. He knew there was a police station on 138th and Amsterdam. Deciding that going there would be the best move (his mother had told him to trust the police), he exited his apartment building and began to head towards the station.

After walking for about ten minutes, Percy passed his school. For a moment, he wondered if telling someone at school what happened would be better than walking all the way to the police station. He decided against it; he was known as a troublemaker at school. Although it was only October of his second grade year, Percy had already been expelled from one school this school year. Yancy Academy was his second school this year and, according to the principal of said school, if he caused any trouble, he would be expelled with no questions asked, so Percy decided that it would be best just to continue walking to the police station.

As he passed the school however, Percy recognized his math teacher, Mrs. Dodds, exiting a smoke shop about a block up the road. As he continued to walk towards her, she called out to him.

"Percy Jackson," she yelled, her nasally voice easily carrying a block. "Are you trying to skip school? You've been nothing but trouble this entire year."

"No, Mrs. Dobbs," he replied, continuing to walk away from the school, "There's a problem at my apartment and I need to get to the police station on Amsterdam."

Percy had never liked Mrs. Dodds. She favored students like Nancy Bobbofit and didn't understand that his dyslexia made it difficult for him to do math. Because of this, he didn't trust her to believe him if he told her what happened to his mother that morning. He hoped she would just accept his word and let him continue on to the police station. Unfortunately, this wasn't to be the case, because as soon as he passed her, she grabbed him by the shoulder.

"You expect me to believe a word that comes out of your mouth, Jackson?" she asked him, her hand uncomfortably tightening on his shoulder. "You're nothing but a troublemaker. You're coming to school with me and that's final."

"No, Mrs. Dodds. You don't understand what's going on," replied Percy, trying to free himself from Mrs. Dodds' vice-like grip. "My stepdad, attacked my mom this morning. I have to get to the police and tell them what happened. Please, let me go."

Mrs. Dodds frowned and stopped walking for a moment as if deciding what to do. After thirty seconds of silence, her hand still clutching Percy's shoulder, the old woman turned towards her student and asked, "Well, where you live boy? If I'm going to believe what you just told me, I'm going to have to see for myself. Take me to your apartment, and we'll go from there. But I swear boy, if you're lying, you'll never step foot into this school again. I'll make sure that you're expelled!"

Quickly weighing his options, Percy decided he would have to take her with him. He could try to make a break for it, but if he did, he was sure Mrs. Dodds would either catch him or, if she didn't, she would just expel him from school.

"I live off 125th and Broadway," Percy finally replied. "It's about a ten minute walk from here. We can head there now, if you want."

"Why don't we take my car instead," the woman said, loosening her grip on his shoulder. "I don't want you running away from me and getting lost in the crowd. If we take my car, I can keep an eye on you until we make it to your apartment and I can decide if you've been honest. It's just up the block at the end of an alleyway. Let's go."

They began walking the block and a half to where the car was located. As the two continued to walk, Percy began to get an uneasy feeling in his gut.

Since he was young, Percy had had the uncanny ability to sense danger before it could strike him. When he was four years old, Percy was playing Frisbee with his mom under a giant oak tree in the park. Although there wasn't a cloud in the sky, Percy began to feel uneasy, like there was a storm brewing. Alerting his mom to this fact, the two grabbed the Frisbee and started to walk home. Not five seconds later, a giant bolt of lightning hit the tree they had been playing under. If it weren't for his gut-feeling, both would have been seriously injured or worse. The same gut-feeling saved Percy's life again when he was six. Percy and his mother had been walking to school when Percy noticed a woman walking three dogs. Taking a closer look, Percy noticed that, instead of one woman walking three dogs, one woman was walking one dog with three heads. Sensing danger, Percy told his mom what he had seen, as unlikely as it seemed. For some reason, she believed him, and the two quickly walked into the nearest store. From the store's front window, the two saw the three headed dog snarl and attack a pretty young girl with long blonde hair. Although the girl managed to escape, Percy quickly realized that his gut-feeling had, at the very least, saved him a trip to the hospital.

Hoping to find an easy exit from the situation he was in at the moment, the black haired boy glanced around. Unfortunately, while he had been lost in thoughts, Mrs. Dodds had managed to lead him down a deserted alleyway.

"Umm... Mrs. Dodds - why are we here?" asked Percy. "I thought that we were going to your car so that you could drive me to my apartment, but I don't see any car here."

Strangely, the old woman didn't respond. Instead, she took one of her long fingers and scraped her sharp fingernail along Percy's cheek, drawing blood. As she licked her finger and tasted Percy's blood her eyes began to glow a strange golden color.

"Ahh... delicious," she drawled out. "You'll make a tasty meal demigod."

By now, all of Percy's senses were on overdrive. Percy looked around for any way he could run, but unfortunately, he was cornered in the back of the alleyway, pinned up against a chain link fence with his teacher standing directly in front of him and blocking the only exit.

Deciding that screaming for help was his best bet, Percy let out a loud bellow. As he screamed, he jerked his shoulder releasing Mrs. Dodds' hold. Using his newfound freedom he moved into a crouching position and crawled through the space between the woman's legs.

As Percy was crawling through her legs, Mrs. Dodds' let out a shriek of fury. Suddenly, her body began to transform. Two grotesque blackish-purple wings pushed through her brown cardigan and her face morphed into that of a demon's complete with sharp teeth, pointed ears, and glowing gold eyes.

As Mrs. Dodds used her newly created wings to take flight, Percy used his ADHD enhanced senses to assess the situation. Obviously, the creature, whatever it was, was out for his blood; it wanted him dead for whatever reason, and since it could fly and he was stuck on land, there was no way to outrun it. Somehow, he would have to fight this creature if he wanted to live.

Percy could hear the creature taunting him from above. Despite the gravity of the situation, he still found himself confused by the creature's words.

"You think you can escape me, little demigod? " the creature said through a series of malicious sounding cackles. "I am Alecto! A Fury! I will have my meal. You will make a fine dish, Percy Jackson."

_What is a demigod?_ though Percy. _And what is a Fury? Most importantly, how the hell did my math teacher turn into that thing?_

Deciding that defense would be the best offense, the boy ran towards a nearby dumpster so that he could crouch behind it and regain his bearings while being semi-protected from the creature. As he was starting to run towards it, he saw a slightly older boy with matted sandy blonde hair and blue eyes, adorned with what looked to be Ancient Greek armor, turn toward the alley and begin running toward him.

"Hey" yelled the older boy, looking in his direction. "Get behind that dumpster quick!"

"Got it," Percy replied, as he briefly turned around to see who was speaking to him. "Thanks mister..."

"Keep running!" yelled the other boy as he took up a defensive stance about ten feet away from Percy. "Don't let the Fury distract you. I'm armed, and you're not. I'm trying to protect you, but I can't do that if you're out in the open."

Unfortunately, the boy's pleas were a couple seconds too late. In the few seconds that Percy had been distracted, the Fury had caught up to him. As Percy started to continue running towards the dumpster, one of the creature's claws caught him from behind, causing him to go flying towards the dumpster.

As Percy's head hit the dumpster, the last thing he could remember thinking before passing out was, Well at least I won't have to do my math homework anymore.

**TO BE CONTINUED**

**A/N:** That's the end of the first chapter folks. What will happen to Percy and his mysterious blonde-haired saviour? Stay tuned and find out. I plan on having the next chapter up within the next week. As I said before, I am looking for a Beta to help me with this story. I have the majority of the story planned out - it will loosely follow the plot of the books ranging from _The Lightning Thief_ to _The Last Olympian_. I have about 30 chapters planned out each about this length. If anyone would be willing to help me with this please PM me or let me know in a review. Thanks for reading and please REVIEW!

**BETA Note: **As of April 1, 2015 this chapter has been edited by my beta. Thanks to the wonderful and amazing _**MarissaTodd**_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **I do not own _Percy Jackson and the Olympians _and/or any of the characters created by the amazing Rick Riordan. I write soley for my own pleasure and not for money. The work below is a product purely of my imagination.

**Author's Note: **Well - I guess that I was feeling extremely generous. I just published this story three hours ago and I've already hammered out another chapter. Don't expect this to happen too often - my goal is to write one chapter per week. I got really into my writing though and pulled an all nighter to finish this second chapter. So please READ and REVIEW!

"Blah Blah" = Character Speaking

_Blah Blah_ = Character's Thoughts

**CHAPTER TWO**

It had started out as a normal Monday morning for Luke Castellan - well, as normal as any Monday morning can be for an eleven year old demigod who had run away from his mother two years prior.

Luke Castellan crawled out of his sleeping bag, gave a giant stretch and checked the time on his watch. Scanning the room in the abandoned home he was sleeping in for anything out of the ordinary, he was relieved to note that all the traps he had set the night before were untouched.

_Seven am_, he thought to himself. _Monday morning. Great - the start to another week of hell. I ran into and killed three monsters last week - wonder how many I'll kill this week?_

Each week, Luke kept a tally of the number of monsters he killed and plotted the location of each kill on a map he had stolen from his mother's house two years prior. From a book he had read before running away, _Greek Demigods: A History_, Luke knew that monsters existed all across America except in Alaska. These monsters were attracted to demigods (due to their scent) and he wanted to avoid areas where monsters congregated. Unfortunately, since he didn't have a passport, he couldn't reach Alaska via Canada. However, by tracking his kills in correlation to where he was located, Luke hoped to determine the safest places to stay. Since he was on the run, (he had no intention of returning home to his mother) Luke couldn't stay in one location for too long. If he could find enough "safe" locations, though, he figured that he could rotate between these places on his travels.

Luke had been born in southern Connecticut, the son of May Castellan and the Greek God Hermes. Although May had never told Luke exactly who his father was, Luke had done enough research to determine with near 100% certainty that his father was indeed Hermes, Greek God of Travelers, Thieves, Athletes and overall Messenger to the God.

As a child, Luke had often wondered why his mother's house had been adorned with the symbol of the caduceus - there was at least one representation (if not more) of the caduceus in each room of his mother's house. After reading the book _Greek Demigods: A History_, he had determined the reason: it was the symbol for the Greek God Hermes. Luke's mother had told him that he was the demigod son of one of the Greek Gods - she just wouldn't tell him who. By the number of a caduceus' in his house, it was fairly obvious that his Mother had had a good deal of contact with only one of the Gods.

In addition, Luke had learned to steal at a young age. His mother was prone to enter fits that could last for days and during these times he was forced to fend for himself. Unfortunately, that sometimes meant stealing to get what he needed. From an early age, the blonde had learned he had a knack for small thievery. When he wanted something at the store, it would seemingly appear in his pocket if Luke had even thought about wanting the object. The boy was also very good at picking locks, a skill that came in extremely handy when on the run. Since Hermes was the Patron God of Thieves, it made sense that Luke was his son.

Finally, Luke bore a striking resemblance to the God himself. In the book, Hermes was described as being relatively tall with blue eyes and dirty blonde to brown hair. Luke was tall, with bright blue eyes and hair the color of sand. Based on their similarities in description, his skills at thievery and the caduceus' at his mother's home, Luke could say with near certainty that his father was Hermes.

Unfortunately, knowing this fact only lead to more angst for Luke, both before and during his time on the run. As a child, May's fits had been terrifying to a young Luke. Luke could remember many hours spent hiding in the closet and praying to his father for help for his mother. Sadly, that help never came.

In addition, Luke had met several other demigods on his travels who were also on the run. Although Luke never spent much time with the other demigods (two demigods together are easier for monsters to find) he had learned that many of the demigods, even those who were unaware of their Greek parent's identity, from time to time received "gifts" ranging from battle weapons to money and food. These randomly appearing gifts would often include a simple note of encouragement signed simply by "Mom" or "Dad."

Luke found this to be extremely saddening. He knew who his father was and prayed to him multiple times per day, and, he made sure to always sacrifice food to him even when food was scarce. Why then did the elder continue to ignore him? Luke often wondered if he had done something to displease his father, or if he was simply a jerk. Luke knew that the ancient laws forbid the Greek Gods from contacting their children, yet the other Gods seemed to routinely break these laws. What made him different?

Nonetheless, Luke tried to always keep some hope alive that one day he could have some sort of relationship with his father. After all, it would be impossible for him to ever have a relationship with his mother. From what the demigod could remember, the first three years of his life had been relatively normal. His mother had worked at the Museum of Natural History in New York City as an expert in Ancient Greek Culture. She raised him as well as any single mother could and his life was good.

Three weeks after his third birthday however, his mother changed. She still cared for him, fed him, clothed him and took him to school, but she seemed more distant. She no longer had time to play with him, and she gradually spent less and less time with him. Eventually, she only spent time with the demigod to insure his basic necessities were met.

On Luke's fifth birthday, things once again took a downturn. After eating his birthday dinner (that he had prepared by himself), Luke decided to watch some television. About thirty minutes into the program, the demigod heard his mother yelling in the kitchen. Although frightened, Luke nonetheless wanted to know what was going on.

As Luke tiptoed into the kitchen, he began to slowly understand what his mother was saying.

"My son," she screeched, her eyes glowing an eerie shade of green, "He will die... The cursed blade... His soul shall reap... Turn back and repent or face the power of the Gods."

Worried for his mother's state of mind and curious to discover why her eyes were glowing green, Luke cautiously moved to stand in front her.

"Mom," Luke said softly, hoping not to startle her, "What's going on? Why are you saying that I'm going to die? I'm right here! I feel fine! What's the matter?"

Despite his pleas, his mother refused to respond to him. Deciding that there was nothing that he could do to help, Luke retreated to his bedroom, where he began to pray to his father. At this point, although he knew his father was a Greek God, Luke had yet to determine that that God was Hermes.

"Dad," Luke prayed. "If you're listening please help Mom. There's something wrong. Her eyes are glowing green, and she's saying I'm going to die. Please help her."

The prayer went unanswered and two days later May passed out on the floor mid-rant. Luke dragged her to her bed, and questioned her about her rant when she woke up. May had no memory of the rant though, and dismissed Luke's questions as the by-product of a child's over-active imagination.

For the next four years the rants grew in length and frequency. By the time Luke was seven, May spent more than half her time ranting or passed out following a rant. Although the boy constantly prayed to his father for help, nothing seemed to be able to stop her once she started in on one of her rants (which all revolved around the death of her son).

When Luke turned eight, he finally figured out who his father was, a task he had been hoping to accomplish since his seventh birthday The boy hoped that if he prayed directly to his elder, his prayers would be answered. His hope was for naught though, and May continuously ranted during the last six months Luke spent with her.

By his ninth birthday, Luke had come to the conclusion that he could no longer stay with his mother. She was unable to care for him herself and he had exhausted her savings (to take care of them both) via ATM withdrawals. After withdrawing the last $200 and packing a small rucksack full of supplies, the boy took one last look at his mother and exited her house for the final time.

After purchasing a bus ticket to Cambridge, Massachusetts, he found a payphone and dialed 911. As tears formed in his eyes, he gave a description of his mother's house and explained that a crazy woman was living there who needed help. As he hung up the receiver, he vowed he would become strong and make the mother he once knew proud. It was the last time that Luke cried.

**UNTIL THE END OF TIME**

After checking the time, Luke took inventory of his supplies and began to plan for the day. He had $132 in cash and plenty of food, so he knew he wouldn't have to worry about stealing any supplies for a few days at least. He also had two dagger, a knife and a sword, all of which were stolen from dead monsters.

Looking over his map, he realized that he had spent almost a month in and around New York City. During that time, he killed eight monsters. While that was a relatively low number (in other parts of the country he had fought up to 3 monsters per day) he never stayed in one place for more than one month. After all, the authorities would never believe his story and the last thing he wanted to do was be stuck with some foster family.

Deciding it was time to move on, he checked his metro New York City map. The nearest train station (his preferred mode of travel), was Grand Central Station located in Midtown Manhattan. Although Luke knew that taking the Subway would be the quickest route, he decided to save the fare by walking. It would be a long walk, but two dollars could someday mean the difference between starving and having food to eat.

Grabbing a granola bar from his pack to eat for breakfast, Luke slowly began to clean up his camp. After taking down the traps he had set up the night before to warn him if anyone entered the house he was camping in, he packed his rucksack and once again checked to make sure that he wasn't forgetting anything. Once he was sure that he had packed everything, he walked out the front door into the bright New York City sun.

Checking his map to make sure he was going in the right direction, the blonde began to walk towards Grand Central station.

Luke considered himself lucky that he looked much older than his actual eleven years. With his sandy-blonde hair, piercing blue eyes and tall height, Luke had frequently been mistaken for a high school student. This had helped him evade the authorities on several occasions as a high school student traveling by himself was much less suspicious than an eleven year old traveling by himself.

As Luke continued walking, he heard a scream. Looking around, he realized that he was the only one to hear it. Deciding to investigate, he quickly put on his armor (which was conveniently hidden in a small ring he had found on a dead empousa) and manipulated the Mist so that no one would notice anything out of the ordinary.

As he headed in the direction of the scream, he soon came upon a dead-end alleyway. He was startled to discover a small boy, about seven or eight years about to be attacked by a flying fury. The boy looked defenseless - he had no armor or weapons and appeared to be extremely frightened.

_Holy Hades_, Luke thought. _A Fury. The servant of Hades himself. This demigod must have some powers to have attracted a Kindly One._

His battle instincts kicking in, he charged down the alleyway with both daggers drawn. Dropping into a crouched position, Luke yelled out to the other demigod. "Hey! Get behind the dumpster quick!"

The shorter boy swiftly turned around to see where the voice was coming from. As the Fury moved closer to its target, Luke had a chance to better examine the other demigod. He concluded that his initial observations were correct. In front of him stood a young boy of about 7-8 years with messy black hair and sea green eyes.

Noticing the Fury getting closer to him, the other boy quickly responded, "Thanks mister..."

Before he could say anything more, though, the fury launched at him, swinging her claws at Percy. The raven haired boy went flying through the air, crashing into the dumpster with a loud thud.

Realizing that there was a second target, the monster turned her attention to Luke.

"Two demigods," she crowed. "It's not often I get to eat two demigods in one day."

While she was distracted by her monologue, Luke darted forward to attack. Realizing that the boy he saved could be gravely injured, Luke knew he had to kill the fury fast so he could treat the boy's injuries.

After all, Luke could remember when he first ran away from home. On his second day on his own, he had been attacked by a hellhound while in a forest in Massachusetts. With only a stick to attack with, he was sure to die. Luckily, another demigod was in the same area and made quick work of the hellhound. The two spent five days together, the other demigod imparting his wisdom onto Luke. When the two parted, Luke had a much greater chance of survival than he did five days prior. The least he could do would be to pass on the same wisdom to Percy.

As such, Luke moved quickly. He darted around to the back side of the fury and, before the fury could attack, he sliced her left wing off.

Screeching in pain, the monster tipped forward, having lost its center of gravity. As she fell forward, Luke threw his second dagger, using it like a throwing knife. His aim was dead on and the knife struck the fury's chest causing blood to squirt everywhere. Within seconds, the Fury had exploded, leaving only a thin layer of gold dust behind.

The immediate threat now dealt with, Luke quickly turned his attention to the other boy, who had fallen on his back near the dumpster. As Luke moved closer, he noticed that the boy appeared to be relatively okay. His only injuries were a couple of scratches and cuts along with a large bump on his head.

Picking him up, Luke used the Mist to conceal the fact that he was carrying a seven year old boy down the streets of New York City. He didn't know how long Percy had been away from home and didn't want whatever he was running from to catch him. In addition, even in a city like New York, a teenage-looking boy carrying a younger one was bound to attract some attention.

Thankful that he hadn't walked too far from his starting location, Luke decided that the best plan would be to take Percy back to the abandoned house he had been staying at. He knew the house was secure and was familiar with neighborhood that it was in. He and Percy could stay there while the latter recovered enough to decide what to do.

Initially, Luke had planned on helping Percy out for a couple of days and then going his own way. As he carried Percy's limp body however, he felt something he hadn't felt in years - companionship. From what he could tell, they were in the same situation. While cleaning up the alleyway, Luke had gone through Percy's pack to see if he could dump any weight. Percy wasn't light and between Percy, Percy's backpack and Luke's rucksack, there was a lot to carry.

While going through the younger's pack, Luke could easily tell that the two were in the same situation. After all, no other seven year old (besides one who ran away from home) would be carrying survival items such as a compass, flint and a knife. It made him wonder what caused Percy to leave home. The other boy was so young - so innocent - what misfortune had befallen him? Many young children ran away from home. It was rare to see one exhibit Percy's level of planning however and that meant Percy was serious about his decision.

In good conscience, Luke just couldn't leave Percy to fend for himself. He remembered when he was seven. Despite his mother's episodes, she was still there some of the time to care for him. There was no way he could have survived alone on the streets. He wasn't going to allow Percy, an untrained and unprotected demigod, to have to survive alone either. Even though Luke knew that the two of them would attract more monsters, Luke decided that the risk was worth it. Something in the boy's sea-green eyes spoke to him and he vowed to protect his new young charge.

_By Hades_, Luke mused, _He wouldn't make it a week on his own. I may not have had a decent parental figure in my life, but I can at least be there for this boy- whether it be as a Dad, a brother or a friend. I WILL protect him come hell or high water. Now, I just have to get him to agree._

Ten minutes later, the two had arrived at the abandoned building. After picking the lock on the front door, Luke placed a sleeping bag on the floor and gently laid Percy down. Wrapping the boy in a blanket, Luke searched through his pack for his emergency stash of ambrosia and nectar and his first aid kit. While in Atlanta, GA he had traded with another demigod to get the supplies. As a son of Hermes, it was easy for Luke to get money. The other boy, a son of Apollo, had an excess amount of ambrosia and nectar his father sent him. The trade worked out well for both demigods.

To treat Percy, Luke poured a small amount of nectar on each cut. He then wrapped the cuts in gauze and bandages. He also took a small piece of ambrosia, and placed it in Percy's mouth, massaging the boy's throat until he swallowed it.

Although it was only two thirty in the afternoon, the blonde felt exhausted from his fight with the Fury and from carrying Percy two miles. Deciding a nap was in order, Luke wrote a quick note and taped it to Percy's shirt telling the raven-haired boy to wake him when he woke. Luke quickly set his traps and then laid down next to Percy. He fell asleep quickly, an arm wrapped protectively around Percy's waist.

**TO BE CONTINUED**

**A/N: **That's Chapter 2 folks. We finally meet Luke - yay - and get to see his protective side come out. Next chapter - Luke explains to Percy about demigods and the two begin travelling together. We'll get to meet Nico for the first time in Chapter 4. I'm still writing without a beta, so if anyone wants that job please contact me via PM or let me know in a Review. And even if you don't want the job , please REVIEW. Reviews fuel my muse - thanks for reading y'all!

**BETA Note** \- As of April 1, 2015 I have a beta. This chapter has now been edited by my wonderful and marvelous beta, _**MarissaTodd**_.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note**: Hi folks - I'm back with Chapter 3 of _Until the End of Time_. I just got a Beta as well, so for the next couple of days I'm going to be going back over the previous chapters with her and making some small changes. The changes won't effect the actual plot - don't worry. Just some minor grammatical mistakes that I missed while proofreading. So... without further ado - here's Chapter 3 of _Until the End of Time_. Enjoy reading and please REVIEW!

"Blah Blah" = Speaking

_Blah Blah = Character's Thoughts_

**CHAPTER THREE**

Percy awoke gradually. It was as if a fog was slowly being lifted from his eyes. As his vision cleared, so did his mind which felt like it was encompassed by that same fog. At first, when he went to open his eyes, Percy could barely remember his own name let alone where he was and what had happened to get him there. He knew one thing though - he definitely wasn't in his own bed. The blanket covering him was green - not blue like the one that covered his bed at home

_What happened, _he thought, as he blinked his eyes a couple of times to try and see clearly. _I can tell that I'm not at home. But how did I get here? Eughh... it feels like my head has been run over by a semi-truck._

Slowly, memories of the fight in the alleyway began to resurface along with the reason that he was in said alleyway in the first place. Tears began to once again well up in Percy's eyes.

_No, _he quickly thought, forcing his body to stop producing tears. _I promised my Mom that I would become strong and make her proud. I will not cry._

As he fought back tears, Percy became aware of a warm weight pressed against his body. Glancing to his right, he saw a boy, about 10 or 11 years old with sandy blonde hair. The boy was sleeping peacefully with his arm wrapped around him. Images of the fight in the alleyway against the flying devil-like thing raced through his mind.

_Well that answers why I'm here at least, _Percy concluded. _I must have blacked out after hitting my head on the dumpster. The boy with the blonde hair must have brought me here. But who is he and where are we?_

Grimacing in pain, Percy started to slowly sit up. His muscles were stiff and his head felt like it has been smashed into with a bowling ball. As Percy sat up, a piece of paper fluttered into his lap. Reaching down to grab the paper, Percy was startled to see numerous bandages and pieces of gauze wrapped around his arms.

_That devil-thing sure did a number on me, _he thought. _I probably wouldn't even be alive anymore if it weren't for that kid who apparently either fought it off or killed it._

As Percy started to read the writing on the note, he was startled to discover that he could read it with no problem, despite not recognizing the language it was written in. In school, Percy's dyslexia had always made reading even the most basic of stories a challenge. Yet now, he could somehow read the note in front of him with no problem. Deciding he could get answers to that mystery later, Percy started to read the note.

_Percy (at least I think that's what you said your name was),_

_I brought you here after defeating the fury in the alleyway. You had banged your head against the garbage bin and passed out. I treated your wounds and made sure they won't scar over. Wake me when you get up so I can explain to you what happened yesterday._

_Luke (the guy from the alleyway who's sleeping next to you)_

_Well that explains a couple things at least, _thought Percy as he glanced at the blonde next to him, his sea-green eyes widening in slight awe. _He must be really strong to have killed that devil-like thing on his own. Wait - he called it a fury - isn't that a creature in Greek mythology?_

At first, Percy contemplated disregarding the note and letting Luke sleep until he awoke on his own. From the couple of times Percy had been forced to wake Gabe up, Percy had become conditioned to letting people sleep until they naturally broke up. Gabe was a monster in the morning and hadn't reacted pleasently the couple of times Percy had awoken him. Percy's curiosity over the previous day's events quickly won out though and he began to gently shake Luke's shoulders.

"Luke - hey Luke," Percy said, his voice becoming slightly louder with each word. "Wake up. Hey - Luke. C'mon, wake up."

After years of living on the streets, Luke had become accustomed to waking up quickly, fully alert and in control of his senses. Because of this, Luke sat right up, rubbing his eyes to dispel any lingering sleepiness.

Glancing at his watch, Luke saw that it was 5:30 in the morning. He had finished tending to Percy's wounds at around 2:30 in the afternoon. That meant he and Percy had slept for over 14 hours.

"Hey you," Luke said with a smile, his steel blue eyes quickly appraising Percy's injuries. "We both must have been quite tired to sleep this long. Your injuries appear to be healing quite nicely. Now I'm sure you woke me because wondering what happened yesterday - right?"

With a shy smile, Percy replied, "Yeah - I am. Thanks for helping me in that alley and treating my injuries. I'm young, but I'm not stupid. You didn't have to stop and help me but you did. If you hadn't been there, that fury-thing would have definitely killed me."

Giving Percy a wry smile, Luke began to dig through his rucksack. After finding two granola bars and two cans of Coke, he tossed one of each to Percy. Popping the top off his own can of Coke, Luke took a long swig before he started to speak again.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," he began, "But by the way you speak I assume you have no idea why that monster attacked you. I'm also going to assume that before yesterday, you had no idea monsters such as that even existed. If you had even heard of such things you assumed they were nothing more than myths - right?"

"Yup," Percy replied between bites of his own granola bar. "Aren't furies from Greek mythology? I know what I think I saw was a fury, but it's hard to believe that thing was real. My mom used to tell me that monsters weren't real and then that thing attacks me. She was my math teacher for a month! And she certainly didn't look like that while she was teaching math!"

Luke had to fight to cover his own surprise at that comment. He had seen monsters in various disguises before. He remembered buying a hot dog from a street vendor in Boston once only to have that street vendor turn into a minotaur and attack him.

But for a monster to actually pose as a math teacher for an entire month? That seemed odd and meant that the monster had some control over their eating habits which seemed to be rare. Typically, monsters shed their disguise as soon as they confronted a demigod. The urge for food was that strong. The only idea Luke could come up with was that the monster had been unsure if Percy was in fact a demigod and had been working at the school in hopes of finding any demigod - not Percy specifically.

Deciding to focus on that mystery later, Luke finished his granola bar and tossed the wrapper to the side. Grabbing another one for himself, he offered a second one to Percy who declined the offer with a wave of his hand.

"So let me ask you first, Percy, what were you doing in that alleyway?" Luke questioned. "Based on the bag you were carrying I can tell that you've run away from home. I went through it before I carried you here to see if I could dump any weight. Between my pack, your pack and your body I had a lot of weight to carry. I didn't dump anything though since it all seemed like essential items. So why'd you run away from home - you're pretty young to be living by yourself on the streets?"

Forcing himself not to cry, Percy began to tell Luke a little bit about himself along with the events that had happened the previous day that led to him deciding to run away.

As Percy spoke, Luke began to feel fury build up in him. How dare that Gabe Ugliano kill Percy's mother and then threaten Percy's own life! Percy was only seven years old - he was innocent and good. Gabe should have been working to protect Percy's innocence, not defile it.

Sadly, by his actions, Luke knew that Gabe had thrust Percy into a world where nothing was innocent and everything had a price. Once again, Luke began to feel protective of the boy in front of him. Although he was unsure of where these feelings were coming from (after all, Luke considered himself to be a selfish person - he had abandoned his own mother) he silently reaffirmed his vow to protect and guide Percy in this world of monsters and Gods they both lived in.

Once Percy was done speaking, Luke could tell that Percy was emotionally drained. In one day, Percy had seen his mother murdered, ran away from home and seen his math teacher transform into a monster he thought only existed in the world of Greek mythology. It was a lot for a seven-year old to take in and Percy was handling it better than most kids his age would. Unfortunately, the monsters wouldn't stop attacking just because Percy needed some time to come to terms with his new situation. As such, Luke knew he had to press ahead with his explanation of Percy's new world.

In an attempt to give Percy some comfort, Luke drew him into a brotherly hug, wrapping his arms around him while slowly running his fingers through his hair. Percy seemed to lap up the affection, quickly returning the hug with one of his own. For a moment, the two sat in peace, simply enjoying the feeling of closeness they shared.

It was Luke who broke the silence.

"You've been extremely brave," Luke said, breaking apart from the hug. "I haven't known you for long, but you're handling this situation extremely well. You can be proud of yourself - most seven year olds I've met would be having a mental breakdown right about now."

Giving Luke another shy smile, Percy began to speak once again.

"It's been a lot to take in. But my gut is telling me to trust you. My gut is usually right so I'm going to listen to it and trust you."

Luke's smile at those words could have blinded even Apollo.

_Finally_, he thought, _I have a reason to wake up in the morning. No more aimlessly wandering from monster to monster my only purpose in life to kill such monsters and stay alive. I now have someone to look after - to protect and guide. A little brother._

With blue eyes full of sincerity, Luke looked to Percy and made a solemn promise.

"Percy - I swear on the River Styx that I will do everything I can to protect you. I will teach you, train you and make sure you are able to survive in this new world you've been thrust into."

As thunder rumbled in the distance, signifying the oath had been accepted, Percy looked at Luke in awe.

"I'm not sure exactly what you just did, but no one, not even my mother, has ever promised to take care of me the way you have," said Percy. "Thank you - just thank you for everything you've done so far. Honestly, after yesterday morning, I wasn't sure how I would be able to make it out here alone."

His smile fading ever so slightly, Luke replied, "Well I can't make any guarantees about what will happen in the future, but I can guarantee that you won't be facing it alone. So why don't I give you some explanations about what happened yesterday. Sound good?"

Nodding in agreement, Percy scooted slightly closer to Luke as if drawing comfort from the presence of the older boy. Although Percy's face had schooled itself into a neutral expression, his sea-green eyes betrayed a slight bit of nervousness at what he was about to be told. He could tell that whatever Luke was about to tell him, it would change the very foundations of his world.

**UNTIL THE END OF TIME**

One hour later, Luke had finally finished his explanation to Percy. After starting by giving an overview of the Gods, monsters and how those monsters were attracted to demigods, he explained to Percy that his father was not really lost at sea as his mother had explained.

Despite Luke's dislike of his own father Hermes, Luke had tried to remain neutral when he told Percy that he was a demigod too with a Greek God for a father. Even so, as Luke finished his explanation by discussing the Ancient Laws which forbid Percy's Godly father from having contact with him, Percy slowly became angry by his own merit.

"So in summary," Percy said, trying to keep his voice from betraying the anger and abandonment he was feeling, "My real father is some Greek God. He was allowed to meet my mother and get her pregnant, yet because of some stupid law, once she was pregnant, he wasn't allowed to have anything to do with her because he couldn't contact me? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Families are supposed to take care of each other. Yet the Greek Gods have some law that forbids my own father from meeting me, and my father - a God of all things - chooses to follow that law? Gabe could have killed me! That fury could have killed me!"

Nodding his head, Luke looked at Percy, his steel blue eyes filled with sincere sadness.

_It's not fair how both of us have gotten stuck in such similar situations, _Luke thought. _Time and time again, we've both desperately needed our father to be there for us. Yet time and time again, our fathers don't show up. I don't know what made me stop in that alley yesterday, but I'm damn glad I did. We both need each other. Forget our fathers - we can be there for each other._

Realizing that Percy was waiting for him to reply, Luke forced himself to stop focusing on the past and instead focus on Percy. Percy was his new priority after all.

"Im not saying it's right or even fair," he replied, placing his arm around Percy's shoulder for comfort, "But that's the law. I've met about ten other demigods on my travels these past two years, and not one of them has ever met their Godly parent. Sure, some of them have gotten gifts, and a couple even had dreams where their Godly parent gave them advice. But actually meeting their parent? Nope - not one demigod I've met has ever had in an in person meeting with their Greek parent.

As Luke continued to speak, Percy became angrier and angrier with each word spoken.

_These Gods claim to control the universe, _he internally raged, _but they can't even make time for their own children. Screw the laws - they're Gods. The make the laws and they can change them. They're just too lazy to bother taking care of their kids and choose to hide behind these so-called laws._

Percy's building rage quickly bubbled over and he began to vocalize his thoughts.

"I could have fucking died thanks to Gabe or that fury," he yelled, spittle flying from his mouth. "DIED! What the hell was my father thinking? I go through a traumatizing experience and he does jack-shit. It's pretty obvious to me that whoever this bastard is doesn't care about me at all! And what about my Mom? She did die. This God apparently loved her so much that he got her pregnant. Yet the second she became pregnant he abandoned her. Now she's dead. This whole thing is just crazy!"

Deciding that letting Percy express his emotions was the best route to go, Luke allowed Percy to continue ranting for the next ten minutes. After all, he himself had experienced many similar bouts of rage when thinking about the Gods. Finally, Percy seemed to calm down but not before asking Luke several poignant questions.

"Sorry about the rant," he began, looking slightly sheepish. "That was a lot to take in. In one day I've gone from thinking my father was lost at sea to now knowing he's a deadbeat Greek God. Even so, my Mom taught me to keep my emotions in check. Do you have any idea who my Godly parent could be? Is there anyway to find out? And where do we go from here? I don't want to stick around in this city too long. The police are going to realize that my Mom is dead soon. Once they realize that, they're going to wonder what happened to me. I don't want to get caught and be placed in a foster home - or worse, an orphanage."

Deciding to attempt to figure out Percy's Godly parent, Luke looked at Percy, taking in his appearence to see if their were any clues to his Godly parent's identity. Thinking back to the book he had read on demigods as a child, Luke began to mentally catalogue all of the male Gods and the attributes of their kids.

_Let's see... Percy has black hair, green eys and a rather tan complexion_, he thought. _That rules out Apollo - his kids have blonde hair and blue eyes. Hermes is out too - he looks nothing like me at all. And if he were Hades kid, he'd have a much paler complexion. Maybe Ares or Poseidon? Or a minor God?_

"I'm sorry Percy," Luke said. "But as to your first question, based on your outward appearance, I really can't tell who your Godly parent is. I'm pretty sure it's not Apollo, Hermes or Hades though. Other than that, it could easily be Ares or Poseidon, or even one of the minor Gods - and there's a lot of those. And unfortunately, unless your Greek parent contacts you, we're never going to know for sure."

Surprisingly, Percy didn't seem all that saddened by the possibility of never knowing who his Godly parent was. Surprised by this, Luke enquired why.

"It's simple," Percy replied. "My Godly father has done nothing for me except get my mom pregnant. For curiosity's sake, I'd like to know. But knowing isn't going to change much. At this point, even if he gets in contact with me, I really have no desire to speak to him. He can't choose to be absent from my life for seven years and then suddenly make a reappearance and expect everything to be okay between us. I have a new big brother - you. I don't need a father."

Shaking his head, Luke gave a slightly bitter laugh although his smile did brighten at the brother comment.

"I couldn't have said it better myself," he replied. "I feel the exact same way about Hermes. Yes - I still do pray to him and make sacrifices to him at meals, but that's more about showing respect. Be careful Percy - the Gods are notoriously fickle. When it's just us, we can say whatever we want about our parents. Like you said - you're my new little brother. But be careful in public - you never know who's listening. And don't use the Gods' names lightly. Names have power."

To demonstrate, Luke said the world "Zeus." In the distance, Percy could hear thunder rumbling.

"I will be careful," replied Percy, a solemn expression on his face. "After all, the Gods have already taken enough from me - my real father, my real mother and a chance at a normal childhood. I don't want some fickle God to do any more damage to my life."

Deciding to change the subject, Luke began to speak of their plans for the next day. Although they had gotten up early that morning, their talk had taken most of the day. Because of this, it was already 4:30 in the evening.

"Like you said Percy," Luke began, "I want to get out of New York City as soon as possible. I've already spent almost a month here - and that's about the most time that I'll ever spend in any one city. Like I told you, monsters are attracted to the scent of demigods, and with us travelling together, we're going to give off that much more scent. Because of that, we've got to keep moving. Moving also keeps the authorities and police from catching onto the fact that two runaways are travelling together."

"How are we going to travel though?" asked Percy. "Before I left home, I stole almost four hundred dollars from Gabe. So I have some money that I can use to pay for tickets and stuff for us. But won't people be suspicious of two young kids travelling together? When I ran away yesterday, I was most worried about my age being a hassle."

Luke looked pensive for a moment, before suddenly coming to a realization. Percy watched him grab a granola bar wrapper. Suddenly, Luke snapped his fingers and where there was once a granola bar wrapper, a train ticket had materialized. Percy's eyes widened in amazement. With another snap of Luke's fingers, the wrapper appeared again.

"What I just demonstrated was The Mist," Luke explained. "The Mist is used to cover up our world from normal mortals. When I was fighting in the alleyway for instance, a normal mortal would not have seen me fighting a monster with my sword. The fight would have been covered up by the The Mist. Instead, thanks to The Mist, a normal mortal would have seen someone being robbed with a gun or something like that. When I first ran away from home another demigod I met took me under their wing for a week. One of the first things they taught me was how to use The Mist. I've been practicing since then and have finally perfected it. By using The Mist, I can change our appearances and the appearance of other objects. It should make traveling together a lot easier."

Percy was clearly impressed. At the same time though, he didn't want Luke to have to fight all their battles. As such, he silently vowed to learn as much as possible from Luke.

"Will you teach me how to do that?" he asked Luke earnestly. "I really appreciate everything you've done for me and I want to be able to do everything that you can. You're an amazing fighter. What else can you teach me?"

"Of course I'll teach you," replied Luke with a small chuckle, enjoying how eager Percy was to gain new knowledge.

"I promised to protect you - that means teaching you everything I know including how to work the Mist. Most importantly though, I'm going to teach you how to fight. Over time, I've gathered some weapons off of dead monsters. We'll find one that works for you and I'll teach you how to defend yourself. We can also see if you've inherited any powers from your father. It's going to be difficult since we don't know exactly who your father is, but we can see what happens. Sometimes, powers manifest themselves in cases of emotional distress - that's how I figured out I could pick locks for instance."

"So in other words," replied Percy, "If I'm angry, scared or fearful, my inherited powers may appear and help me out of the situation?"

"Exactly," answered Luke. "Now - for the past two years I've been mapping where I've traveled and collecting data on the number of monsters I faced in each area. Let's look over that data together and figure out where we should travel to next."

Luke reached inside his rucksack and pulled out a map along with several notebooks filled with his writing. The map was filled with red and green dots. Luke explained that a green dot signified a place he had travelled to previously while each red dot equalled one monster he had killed in that location. The notebooks contained detailed information about the types of monsters he had faced along with any survival tips he had gathered.

After examining the maps and notebooks for several minutes, Percy noticed that there were two locations that had an abnormally low number of monster kills - Las Vegas and Seattle. In each location, Luke had faced less than one monster for each week had spent there.

Deciding that Las Vegas would be easier to get to, since there was an Amtrak train that traveled directly from New York City to Las Vegas, Percy and Luke agreed that Las Vegas would be their next destination. The train left at 4:20pm the next day, so the two would get up early and make the long trek to Grand Central Station where they could purchase and tickets and board the train.

For the rest of the evening, Luke continued to teach Percy about the different monsters they were most likely to face on their journey to Las Vegas. Although monsters tended not to attack while they were on a moving train, there was still a possibility of meeting one while stopped at a station. As such, Luke used the data he collected to determine which monsters they would be most likely to encounter on their route to Las Vegas. He taught Percy about each monster and how they could defeated.

Percy was the first to fall asleep at around 9pm that night. As he lay peacefully sleeping on the floor, Luke covered him with a blanket to make sure he was comfortable during the night.

Soon Luke also laid down, about two feet away from Percy. As he lay gazing at the ceiling, thinking about the events of the past two days, he felt a warm weight snuggle next to him. Looking over, he saw that Percy had decided to move himself, so that the two were sleeping right next to each other.

With a fond smile on his face, Luke thought, _Brothers. I've always wanted a little brother. Meeting Percy has been the best thing to happen to me since I ran away from home._

**TO BE CONTINUED**

**A/N: That's chapter 3 folks. Hope you all enjoyed the Luke and Percy bonding time. I know I did - a little bit of fluff but also a range of other emotions. I know it may seem like Percy has a lot of rage towards the Gods immediately after finding out about them, but I simply put myself in his shoes when I wrote it and that's exactly how I would have felt. Frankly, after reading all the _Percy Jackson _books, I really can't fault any of the demigods who joined Kronos. The Greek Gods really were crappy parents, especially those who didn't even claim their kids. Anyways, Chapter 4 will feature the trip to Vegas - Nico will be making his first appearence shortly! Until next time - PLEASE REVIEW!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: **Hi folks - I'm back with Chapter 4. Its extra long too - so I hope you enjoy. I have a new beta, _** MarissaTodd**_, so after this chapter, all of my chapters will be edited before I post them. She's also gone over the previous chapters and I've posted the changes to Chapter 1 and 2. There are no plot changes - just small grammar, spelling, etc. issues. The changes for Chapter 3 will be up soon. I don't want to beg, but I was saddened to see I did not get any reviews last chapter. While I write beccause I enjoy writing, it's still nice to see how my readers are reacting to my work. So PLEASE, when you've finished reading this chapter, **LEAVE A REVIEW **\- you don't know how happy that would make me. So enjoy this chapter and **PLEASE READ AND REVIEW!**

**Beta - **My chapters are now being Betaed by the wonderful _**MarissaTodd.**_

**Warnings **\- This chapter contains a little violence as well as the mention of cigarette smoking.

"Blah Blah" = Character's Speech

_Blah Blah _= Character's Thoughts

**CHAPTER 4**

Luke was the first of the two boys to awaken in the morning. Checking his watch, he saw it was 6am. Although he had set the alarm on his watch for 7am, he had awoken as soon as the first rays off Apollo's chariot had streamed through the window like he usually did.

Checking on Percy to make sure he was still soundly asleep, Luke silently crawled out from under the blanket that had covered the two demigods during the night. After changing into a fresh pair of clothes and brushing his teeth using a bottle of water, Luke checked his supplies to see what he could make for breakfast. Previously, the demigod had purchased a small camp-stove so he could have the luxury of hot food on the road without paying restaurant or deli prices.

After discovering the only vaguely breakfastish food he had was a box of Pop-Tarts, Luke remembered that Percy had told him that his favorite meal as a child had been blue pancakes made by his mother. Luke decided to make some in celebration of the first day of having a little brother. However, he didn't have any of the ingredients. Because of this, the demigod checked his map of metro New York City and found a small grocery store a block away.

Before leaving, Luke double-checked to make sure Percy was still sleeping soundly. Although the younger boy was, Luke still wrote a quick note saying where he was going. He didn't want Percy to wake up and be frightened when he discovered that the older demigod had left. After slipping on a thin black jacket and a pair of shoes, Luke checked to make sure he had grabbed enough money for his purchases. Yes, he knew he could have stolen the items, but he preferred to save such techniques for emergencies. He found almost $50 in cash in his wallet and after putting his Ray-Bans on, Luke walked out the door

Whistling to himself, Luke trekked the block to the store. After grabbing a box of pancake mix, oil, eggs, blue dye and a package of bacon, Luke proceeded to the checkout counter where he paid for his purchases along with a pack of Marlboro Reds. Thanks to the Mist, a piece of paper he carried in his pocket appeared to be a driver's license stating he had just turned 18. The Mist also covered up his actual appearence making him appear older than he actually was. While Luke knew smoking was both a terrible habit and a waste of money, he nonetheless found the act of inhaling burning tobacco leaves to be a pleasurable relaxant.

_Die by cancer or die by monsters_, he thought as he lit up a cigarette and took a deep drag.

Beginning his walk home, Luke continued to muse. _Does it really even matter? We're all going to meet Thanatos someday. Might as well enjoy life while I can. Who knows? With Percy here, I might even quit. I've got something to live for now._

Lost in his thoughts, Luke wasn't paying attention to his surroundings and ended up crashing into a fellow pedestrian. As he fell to the ground, Luke saw the man he had crashed into. He was tall, with jet black hair, piercing onyx eyes and deathly pale skin. He was wearing a tailored suit with an Armani label along with a pair of Italian leather loafers.

Luke quickly stood back up and muttered an apology hoping to avoid any awkward conversation with the man. This was not to be however, for as soon as he had taken three more steps, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Spinning around, Luke's eyes darted both ways assessing the scene for any sign of danger. When he found none, he turned his attention to the businessman who had yet to remove his hand from the demigod's shoulder.

"Mr. Castellan?" the man asked in a smooth voice that almost demanded obedience. "You are Mr. Luke Castellan - correct?"

Eyes widening in shock, Luke's mind began to process the situation.

How does this man know my name, he thought, his mind reeling from the shock that someone in a city of over eight million people knew exactly who he was. I've been here less than a month and haven't left any trace of my identity. Is this man a friend or a foe?

Deciding to exercise caution, Luke replied, "And who wants to know? I could easily scream right now and the whole street would think you were a pedophile trying to attack me."

Giving a hearty chuckle, the man's onyx eyes danced in amusement.

"It's not too often that one of your standing has the guts to stand up to me," he replied. "I rather like it. It's refreshing. Even I get tired of the constant bowing and scraping. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised, you're a son of Hermes after all. That man never did have any respect for authority."

By this point, Luke's eyes were practically bulging out of his head. No one besides Percy and his mother knew the truth of his parentage. This was the first time that someone else had identified Hermes as his father. Surprisingly, rather than fear, Luke's first reaction was anger. It had been years since he had actually considered Hermes worthy of the title of father.

"That man is no father of mine," he spat out. "Don't tell me you work for him. I want nothing to do with him. He abandoned me and my mother as a child. He ignored my prayers in my time of need. I haven't heard from him in two years on the street. Some father he is."

Due to Luke's angry words, he and the man had begun to attract a bit of a crowd. Wanting their conversation to be private, the man guided Luke to a park on the other side of the road where the two took a seat next to each other on a park bench. Still too stunned that someone besides he and Percy knew the truth of his parentage, Luke followed without question.

"No," the man replied after sitting down and taking a deep breath. "I don't work for your father. In fact, he has no idea I'm talking to you today. My name is Lord Hades, God of the Underworld, Wealth and Riches and I need a favor of you and your new travelling companion when you arrive in Las Vegas."

Once again, Luke was momentarily stunned. The man sitting next to him - the perfectly normal looking man - was the God of the Underworld! It made sense though, only another Greek God would know both his name and Godly parent. Plus the man did appear similar to the picture of Lord Hades he had seen while reading a book on demigods.

Quickly coming to the conclusion that angering the God sitting next to him would be a bad idea, Luke decided to proceed with caution. Yes, he hated his father and most of the Gods, but openly showing that hate was asking for trouble. As such, Luke's next words were spoken with as much respect as he could muster.

"Okay," he replied. "I guess that makes sense. Only a God would know the truth of my parentage. What do you need my help with? I don't mean any disrespect but if you can't accomplish something, what makes you think I can?"

"First off," answered Hades, "I need you to make a vow on the Styx that you won't share this information with anyone but Percy. I've already enacted a privacy bubble around us. That way, no Gods will be able to spy on this conversation. The information I'm going to share with you could put certain people's lives at risk. It won't affect you, but I need to protect those people. So I need you to take that vow."

Luke looked at Hades, his steel blue eyes filled with inquisitiveness.

_Why would a god of all people share info with me that could be life-threatening to someone, _ he thought. _I guess there's only one way to find out. I'll take the vow._

Making sure to maintain eye contact with Hades, Luke took the vow.

"I, Luke Castellan, son of Hermes, vow on the River Styx not to share the info Lord Hades gives to me with any person except Percy Jackson and anyone else Lord Hades gives me permission to speaks to."

Despite the cloudless sky, a loud clap of thunder could be heard signifying the vow's acceptance.

Looking relieved, Hades began to speak.

"Back in the 1940s, I met and had an affair with a mortal in Italy," he began. "Her name was Maria di Angelo. We were truly in love and I sired two children with her - Nico and Bianca. When Nico was eight years old and Bianca twelve, Zeus found out about the existence of the two children. A couple years previously, the Oracle of Delphi had given a prophecy about a child of the Big Three - Zeus, myself and Poseidon. The prophecy stated that a child of the Big Three would reach the age of 16 and would either destroy or save Olympus. Because of this prophecy, my brothers and I vowed not to have anymore children."

"Wait," interjected Luke, interrupting Hade's train of thought. "I read about the vow not to have more children in a book on demigods. In the book though, it said that the vow was due to World War II. It stated that the war was too destructive. In the end, World War II was really just a big fight between Zeus and Poseidon's children and yours. It said you made the vow to prevent another war like that. So what's the real story?"

Hades nodded in understanding. After all, he was the one who had come up with that lie. Adolf Hitler was his son and had let his power go to his head. It took the combined might of Winston Churchill (a son of Zeus) and Franklin Roosevelt (a son of Poseidon) to end his reign of terror.

Continuing to speak, Hades explained, "That's what we told the masses. The prophecy was too dangerous to be made public. We couldn't let our enemies find out. If any of our children turned against us, they could be used to destroy Olympus. Because of this, Zeus considered Nico and Bianca to be a threat, since they were going to turn sixteen relatively soon. He tracked them down and tried to kill them. I was able to save them, but not before Maria died protecting them. I knew if Zeus had made one attempt, he would try again. My children were no longer safe on their own."

Pausing for a moment, Hades snapped his finger. Instantly, a bottle of nectar and a can of Coke appeared in his hand. He handed the Coke to Luke and took a swig of his own nectar.

His throat refreshed, he continued speaking.

"No matter how much I wanted too, I couldn't raise my kids on my own. Zeus would have instantly found out. I couldn't even contact them. Again, Zeus would find out. That killed me inside, since before that, I had visited them weekly. Now that Zeus knew who my kids were, he would have no issue tracking them down."

A lone tear fell from Hades' eye and made its way down his cheek. Dabbing at his eye with a black silk handkerchief, he took a moment to compose himself.

"After a week of searching, I came up with an idea. Since the 1930s, the Lotus Eaters have lived in Las Vegas. They run a casino there. The casino though is a trap. Anyone who enters will be stuck there for eternity. Time doesn't pass in the casino and the visitors are frozen in time. For this reason, even the Gods avoid the casino. Knowing this, I took Nico and Bianca to the casino. I instructed the staff to watch over them. As soon as the prophecy played out I was going to remove them."

Luke looked at Hades thoughtfully. The demigod was shocked to realize that he had actually found a God who cared about their mortal children. For a moment, disregarding their current situation, Luke felt a pang of envy towards Nico and Bianca. Why couldn't his father care for him like that?

"Unfortunately, fifty years have passed and the prophecy has still yet to pass," Hades stated. "My children are still in danger. A couple of weeks ago, I received word that a Satyr was seen inside the casino. He's still trapped there, but if he escapes, word of my children could spread. Satyrs are trained to identify demigod parentage by smell. My children are no longer safe there. Yesterday, I had one of my furies collect Bianca. She was taken to the Hunters of Artemis Camp. In return for vowing to serve Artemis, she received immortality - she will stay twelve for ever and is safe from being the child of the prophecy. Sadly, that isn't an option for Nico."

Luke paused to think for a moment. Sitting next to him was a God who actually tried to help his children. This was a first - every other demigod he had met had received little to no help from their Godly parent. Yes, they got "care packages" and little notes from time to time, but this was the first time he had ever seen a God go out on a limb to help a mortal child. Despite the danger they were in, Nico and Bianca were lucky to have Hades as a father.

Because of this, Luke felt inclined to help Hades. It wouldn't be right for the one God who cared about his kids to lose them.

_Meeting Percy has really reawakened my compassion_, Luke thought. _After all those years with my Mom, I was just angry. I wanted revenge. Yes, I still want that revenge, but I want to do it in a way that will help others. Helping Nico and Bianca is definitely sticking it to Zeus - he's the one who wants to murder innocent kids after all. I'm pretty sure Hades is the one decent God out there._

His decision made, Luke spoke up.

"So what do you need Percy and I to do, Lord Hades?"

"I know you're going to Vegas," replied Hades. "When you get there, I need you to retrieve Nico from the Lotus Casino. I have an amulet that will protect you from the time magic. As long as you don't eat any of the casino's food you will be protected and can leave. Once you've retrieved Nico, I need you to bring him to Craig, Alaska. A demigod that owes me a favor lives there. He will watch over Nico."

"But why Percy and I?" asked Luke. "There's plenty of demigods with more experience than us out there he could do this as well."

"To answer your question," began Hades, "I've looked all over for a demigod to complete this task. Most demigods though are completely loyal to Olympus and their parents. They wouldn't hesitate to turn my son in even if it meant his death. You on the other hand - you have a deep resentment towards the Gods. Because of this, you have no motivation to turn my son over to the other Gods. I also have seen how you care for Percy - I see your compassion. I believe that you would value a life more than the words of a prophecy."

Luke nodded his head in agreement. Hades was exactly right. He would never willingly hand a demigod over to the Gods knowing that doing so would mean the demigod would die. That was barbaric and showed just how power hungry and corrupt the Gods of Olympus had become.

"You're exactly right," replied Luke. "You're the one God I know of who cares about their kids and because of that I'm willing to help you. But I'm going to need some help from you too. Percy and I live on the streets. We don't exactly have the finances necessary to pay for a trip to Alaska."

Hades reached into his pocket and pulled out a large ziploc bag. The bag contained a wad of cash, three passports, three necklaces made from onyx beads and a black makeup compact. He handed the bag to Luke and began to explain the contents.

"I've given you $3000 in cash and passports for you, Percy and Nico," Hades explained. "You won't be able to fly or travel over water since those are Zeus' and Poseidon's domains. Because of that, you'll need the passports to get through Canada to get to Alaska. Nico's passport also has an up-to-date photo of him so you know who he is and can find him. When you get to the casino make sure to wear the necklaces, they will protect you from the casino's magic that traps you there. Once Nico starts wearing one he can escape as well."

As Hades was speaking, Luke pulled the black makeup compact out of the bag and looked at it curiously. At first glance, it appeared to be be an ordinary makeup contact. When he looked closer however, Luke noticed there were two small buttons on the side. One said "send" and the other said "receive." Intrigued, Luke pressed the "send" button. The compact popped open and a small rainbow appeared.

"Di immortales," Luke said, slightly startled by the sudden appearance of the rainbow. "What in Zeus' name is this?"

"It's an instant-iris messenger," Hades replied.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out an identical item.

"If you need to contact me, simply press send, and my matching iris messenger will vibrate. If I need to contact you, yours will vibrate and you press receive. We can then talk like we normally would through an iris message. It's also secure - Iris can't eavesdrop. Plus, all calls are billed to me so you don't have to worry about having drachmas handy. It will allow us to communicate while you're travelling."

Nodding his head, Luke placed all of the items in his pocket. He asked Hades if there anything else he needed to know about their journey.

"Just be safe," replied Hades. "I'll do my best to watch over you but I have my duties to attend to as well Contact me at anytime and let me know when you've arrived in Alaska. I wish you and Percy the best of luck."

Luke stuck his hand out for Hades shake. After the two shook hands, they parted company, Hades disappearing in a puff of black smoke.

**UNTIL THE END OF TIME**

Luke arrived back at the house he and Percy were staying at ten minutes later. When he entered, the first thing he noticed was that Percy was no longer sleeping. The sleeping bag had been rolled up and the blankets were packed away in the rucksack. Percy was sitting on the floor, reading through Luke's notes about the monsters, a grim look on his face.

"Doing a little research?" asked Luke as he unpacked the groceries and set up the camp stove.

"Yup," replied Percy. "I may not know how to fight yet, but at least I'll know how to identify the monsters. I've never travelled farther than Long Island so going on a cross-country journey is a little scary."

Although Percy was trying to put on a good front, Luke could tell that the younger demigod was genuinely nervous about leaving his hometown. His skin, which was normally a golden tan, appeared slightly pale. His hands shook slightly as he held the notebook and he wasn't making eye-contact when he spoke.

Setting down the groceries, Luke walked towards Percy and kneeled in front of the younger boy. After placing his hands on Percy's shoulders, he hunched over so that he was looking the younger demigod directly in the eye.

"I know you're nervous," he said. "And that's okay. It's a big decision for a seven year old to run away from home and then leave town with someone they met two days ago. But like I said yesterday, I'm going to do everything I can to protect you. We're family now."

Percy leaned towards Luke and pulled the elder into a hug.

"As long as you're with me I'll be fine," he explained. "Just having you here makes me more comfortable. You're brave and strong and I know that you'll protect me. So what are we having for breakfast?"

After a moment, the two broke apart from their hug and started to cook breakfast. While Luke took care of frying the bacon, Percy mixed the pancake batter together, before adding liberal amounts of blue dye. Once the batter was prepared, he spooned some onto the camp stove, cooking the pancakes in the leftover bacon grease.

As the two at breakfast, Luke recounted his morning meeting with Hades. He explained the task he had agreed to, and after checking with Percy to make sure he was alright with it, he went on to describe exactly what they needed to do to get Nico to Alaska safely.

"You met Hades?" asked Percy, after a moment of stunned silence. "The God of the Underworld? And he wants us to take his son to safety? That's amazing."

Luke nodded in agreement. Even after Hades had explained his reasoning, he himself was still stunned that a God would select him of all people to perform an important quest. Still, he wasn't going to question the God's reasoning. He was just grateful that he got to help a demigod while at the same time preventing a different God, one he disliked, from screwing with another human's life. It was the perfect way to get revenge against the God who enforced to law which prevented his father from easily meeting with him.

After finishing breakfast, the two demigods cleaned up their mess and packed up all their belongings. The night before, the two had mapped out the quickest route to Grand Central Station. According to their calculations, they would be walking a little less than ten miles. Gathering up their map and backpacks, Percy and Luke checked the house one last time for forgotten belongings before departing for the train station.

The two made good time for the first half of their walk. Since it was overcast and slightly chilly, fewer tourists and locals alike crowded the usually jam-packed streets of New York. Because of this, Percy and Luke quickly made it to 80th and Broadway, before deciding to stop for lunch.

The two demigods ate a quick meal at a small diner. As they were sitting on a bench outside the diner after eating, Luke began to feel wary. Prior to entering the diner, the streets had been fairly deserted. Now, they were completely empty. He and Percy were the only two people on the entire block. It was if some invisible force was preventing people from coming near them.

Percy too was aware that something felt off. As he scooted closer to Luke, seeking comfort from the older demigod's presence, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Despite the fact that there was no wind blowing, grass in a planter down the block was still swaying to and fro.

Gently tapping Luke on the shoulder, Percy pointed towards the planter. Luke's eyes grew large as he discreetly pulled his dagger and two knives out of his pack, handing the two knives to Percy.

Without warning, a whirlwind of grass and leaves appeared above the planter and began to move towards the two demigods. Luke jumped off the bench, crouching into a defensive position in front of Percy.

As the whirlwind got closer, the boys could see that it was not made up of leaves and grass as they first suspected. Instead, three green toddler-like creature with brittle brown wings were rapidly spinning in circles causing the appearance of a whirlwind.

When the whirlwind was two feet in front of the boys it stopped, and the three toddler-like creatures moved to stand a line. The one in the center stepped forward and began to speak.

"We are the three Karpoi sisters," she said, "And we serve the Goddess Demeter. We heard the blonde-haired one's conversation with the Lord of the Underworld and have come to bring you to our Goddess so she may be informed of Hades' treacher. Our Goddess is loyal to Zeus unlike you two. If you come peacefully, you shan't be harmed."

As the first Karpoi was speaking, the other two spirits began to move away from their sister in an attempt to surround the demigods so they could be easily subdued should trouble arise.

Now knowing that the spirits were hostile, Luke decided to act. He thrust his dagger forward catching the Karpoi who had been speaking by surprise. The dagger plunged through her torso causing the Karpoi to emit a high pitched screech of rage. Luke continued to push the dagger in deeper and within seconds the first Karpoi had been turned into gold dust.

At the same time, the second Karpoi darted forward, grabbing Percy by his leg and dragging him away from Luke. Attempting to slow her down, Percy dropped one of his knives and reached towards the bench he had just been dragged off of and used his left hand to grab onto the back of the bench. As he held on, he began blindly thrusting the knife in his right hand towards the Karpoi hoping to stun her into letting go.

Seeing that her sister was having difficulty apprehending Percy, the third Karpoi also turned its attention to Percy. As Percy held onto the bench, she grabbed his arm that was holding onto the bench and pulled, hoping to loosen his grip. As she did so, Percy screamed, hoping to attract Luke's attention. There was no way he could fight off both Karpois from his current position.

Luke had just defeated the first Karpoi when he heard Percy scream. Turning around, he saw that Percy was being attacked by the remaining two Karpois. After picking up his dagger, Luke raced towards the younger demigod intent on freeing him from the monsters' grasps. While the Karpoi was distracted with removing Percy's hand from the bench, Luke struck from behind, decapitating the Karpoi with one slice from his dagger.

As the second Karpoi turned to dust, one of Percy's knife thrusts finally hit its mark. As Perc's knife embedded itself into one of the spirit's wings, the final Karpoi let out a violent trill. Momentarily stunned by the pain, the monster let go of Percy causing him to fall to the ground. Picking up his other knife, Percy stood back up intending to lunge forward toward the final monster and attack her. Before he could do so though, a dagger camping flying through the air and hit the Karpoi in the neck. The spirit fell down and after a couple of seconds, it too had turned to dust.

Double checking to make sure all of the monsters had been defeated, Percy rushed towards Luke. After giving each other a quick hug, the two demigods gathered their weapons and turned down an alley where they could repack their bags and check for injuries. Although both boys were bruised and exhausted from the fight, neither had even a scrape on their body.

Sighing in relief after seeing that Percy was uninjured, Luke began to speak.

"Thank the gods that's over with and you're alright. You did a great job defending yourself from those spirits. We gotta get out of this area quick. Monsters attract other monsters and I don't want us to be here when more show up. Let's hail a cab and get to the train station."

Nodding in agreement, Percy walked towards the street and raised his arm to hail a cab. A couple of minutes later the two were safely in a cab heading towards the train station. Rather than converse with each other or the cabbie, the two demigods spent the cab ride lost in their own thoughts. Both boys held hands and refused to let go; Percy, seeking the feeling of safety he felt when with Luke and Luke needing the reassurance that he hadn't lost his new little brother just three days after finding him.

After a twenty minute cab ride through Manhattan's traffic packed streets, the cab pulled up outside the train station. Luke paid the driver, grabbed his bag and helped Percy out of the cab. Despite the fact that Percy was physically unhurt, he was still a bit mentally shaken from the encounter with the Karpoi. Although he had been attacked by a Fury previously, he had been unconscious during most of the battle. This was the first time that he was able to get an actual impression of the type of danger he would be facing for the rest of his life. Needless to say, it was a sobering lesson.

The two demigods walked into the train station and sought out the Amtrak ticket counter. After handing over their passports and paying $400, the two were given tickets for a compartment in a private sleeper car on the train to Las Vegas. The ticket agent gave them a couple odd looks due to their age, but luckily their passports passed inspection and they were allowed to ride the train. Despite the high cost of the private sleeper car, Luke felt the safety inherent to having a private car was well worth the difference in price. Percy agreed, still shook up from the encounter with the Karpoi a few hours prior.

The two boys had left their shelter a little after 9am. Not wanting to arrive late to the train station, they decided to give themselves extra time for their walk. The fight with the Karpoi had delayed them though and as soon as they bought the tickets it was time to board the train.

With some help from the conductor, the two demigods easily found their private compartment in the sleeper car. Upon entering, both boys gave a small whistle in appreciation. The compartment screamed money and was filled with luxurious furnishings.

Their sleeping car contained a large leather couch set across from a hardwood table. There was a large chair on each end of the table and both chairs were made from the same reddish-brown wood as the table.

_Probably mahogany_, thought Luke as he admired the interior of their compartment.

There was a vase filled with fresh flowers on the table along with an assortment of cold hors d'oeuvres. At night, the couch could be converted into a full-size bed. The boys discovered Egyptian cotton sheets for the bed in a set of drawers under the compartment's window. The drawers also contained two thick cotton robes that could be worn at night or after bathing.

A large flat-screen tv hung on the wall opposite the couch. There were four speakers, one in each corner, giving the compartment surround-sound. A console below the television allowed the boys to play DVDs or video games that could be rented from the train's extensive library.

The back corner of the compartment contained the two demigods private bathroom. Although it was small, it was by no means less luxurious than the rest of their accommodations. The fixtures were made from marble and the shower head had 10 settings for water pressure from which to choose. Even the toilet was high-tech as it contained a self-cleaning button.

As Luke began to unpack his belongings, he noticed Percy was still standing in the doorway. Surprised, he inquired as to why.

"I'm afraid if I touch anything I'll break it," replied Percy with a nervous chuckle. "Since two days ago, I live on the streets. I don't feel worthy to even be in this compartment."

With a loud laugh, Luke picked Percy up off the ground and set him on the couch. Luke locked the compartment's door and then looked Percy straight in the eye.

"You deserve all this and more little brother. It's ours for the next three days so enjoy it," he replied. "Hopefully, we can have a relaxing next couple of days before starting on our mission to retrieve Nico and bring him to safety."

With a small smile, Percy voiced his agreement and began unpacking his pack as well. After both demigods had finished unpacking, Luke found the remote to the television and turned it on. The two boys settled on watching a program on the Discovery Channel about warfare in Sparta.

For twenty minutes, the two sat in companionable silence, Percy's head resting on Luke's lap. At 4:30pm exactly, a loud whistle could be heard in the distance. The train began moving, and Percy stood up and walked to the window.

As he watched the buildings of New York become smaller and smaller, the realization fully hit him. He was leaving New York City for good and didn't know when he would be back.

Looking over his shoulder at Luke, who had joined him by the window, Percy realized that while he was still saddened by the death of his mother, he was no longer angry at the situation itself. He was a demigod, a half-blood son of some deadbeat God. Although he still felt resentment towards his father, he couldn't help but be thankful that he had found out he was a demigod. After all, being a demigod had gained him a big brother, something he had always wanted. Content, he sat back down and soon the movement of the train had lulled both demigods to sleep.

**TO BE CONTINUED**

**A/N: **That's it folks -there's Chapter 4 for you. We get to meet Hades and have a small fight scene as well. I know there's been a lot of description and dialogue and not alot of action in these first four chapter. Don't worry - starting next chapter, things will start to move A LOT faster and there will be some time skips. Like I said, this story will loosely follow the books and we're still a couple years before the books. So we gotta catch up. Next chapter we meet NICO and the boys start their journey to bring Nico to Alaska. As I said above, **PLEASE LEAVE ME A REVIEW **now that you're done reading this chapter. I respond to all signed reviews and want to hear what you have to think - whether it be a compliment, criticism or ideas you have for the story. If I could get 5-10 reviews for this chapter, I would be the happiest person ever. **SO PLEASE REVIEW!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note - **Hi folks - its time for Chapter 5 and only two days after I published Chapter 4. It's another long chapter as well, so I hope you enjoy. We get to see Nico for the first time this chapter as well - so lots of treats in store. I want to thank the 5 people who gave me reviews in the last two days for Chapter 4. Getting each of those reviews made my day! One reviewer, asked me why Nico was listed as a main character even though it states in the summary that he dies. I can't give away too much, but think about this - who is Nico's father? It's a pretty big hint - make of it what you will. Anyways, enjoy this chapter, and please **REVIEW, FOLLOW and FAVORITE. **I got 5 reviews last chapter, can we shoot for **10 REVIEWS **this chapter? It would make me super happy and I promise free cookies all around!

**Beta Note** \- My chapters are being betaed by the wonderful and amazing _**MarissaTodd.**_

**Chapter Warnings - **Some violence (there's a fight scene) and mature language

"Blah Blah" = Character's Speech

_Blah Blah _= Character's Thoughts

**CHAPTER 5**

The two demigods spent the next three days riding the train to Las Vegas. During the day, the two spent the majority of their time training Percy about the various monsters that inhabited their world. Because of the limited space of their compartment, the two demigods couldn't engage in any physical training. Instead, Luke taught Percy about each type of monster he had encountered along with any weaknesses he had noted while fighting them. The two would hold "mock" battles - Luke would come up with a hypothetical combination of monsters that could attack Percy, and Percy would have to devise the best strategy to defeat them.

Luke also spoke to Percy about each of the Greek Gods and explained about their domains and powers. Percy was shocked to discover just how many demigods existed in the world. Although Luke was estimating based on the number of demigods he had met, he told Percy their were most likely hundreds if not thousands of demigods alive. The younger demigod found this to be ridiculous. While he could somewhat understand an occasional affair with a mortal (after all, even his Mom had fallen victim to the charms of a God), based off Luke's numbers, it seemed as though the Gods did nothing but court mortals and then have babies with them.

Both demigods were angered by this. From what Luke had seen, many demigods lived hard lives with little or no support from their Greek parent. From a young age, demigods were damned to a harsh and short life. Both boys wondered then why the Gods kept having children with mortals. Wasn't it painful for the Gods to watch their children die at such young ages? Surely they could control their libido - couldn't they? Was the only purpose of demigods then to ensure that the Gods always had at least some people worshipping them? It seemed this way to both boys, a fact that caused resentment towards the Gods to build even in young Percy.

Despite the life-or-death nature of the topics he was teaching Percy about, Luke still made sure that the two demigods found time for fun. While Luke had travelled by train many times in the two years since he had run away from home, the only train Percy had ever been on was the Subway in Manhattan. Because of this, Luke made sure to indulge Percy when he wanted to explore the train. The two splurged on a meal in the dining car and spent hours watching the scenery pass by in the glass-roofed dome car. The two relaxed by watching television in their compartment and made sure to try games from each console they had access to.

On the second morning of their trip, Luke awoke to an unusual sight. Typically, the older demigod woke up an hour or two before Percy. Luke's body had become accustomed to getting up early when living on the streets. This morning however, he had slept in, not rising until 8am.

When he awoke, he was at first worried when he did not immediately see Percy asleep beside him. After checking the time though, he became less concerned, realizing he had slept in later than usual. As he showered and got dressed, he wondered where Percy had gone. The prior day he had taught Percy about the monsters he had faced, and he wanted to spend today teaching Percy about the Gods.

He was interrupted from his musings when Percy barged into the compartment. The younger boy was out of breath and was trying to explain what happened to him. After getting the younger boy to calm down, Luke had Percy explain exactly what had happened that morning.

Apparently, Percy had woken early before the sun had risen. He couldn't fall back asleep and decided to watch the sunrise. The train had a scheduled stop in a small town in Kentucky. The train station was right alongside the river and since the train was scheduled to be stopped for two hours, Percy decided to watch the sunrise by the river.

While Percy was sitting by the river, he had started to hear a buzzing noise.

"I thought I was hearing a swarm of bees," explained Percy. "I was ready to run away when I realized the buzzing was really an extremely high-pitched whiny voice. I looked around for the source and saw an animal emerging from a clump of bushes. It wasn't a monster though. It was this huge, beautiful, black winged-horse."

Luke was astonished. He had read about pegasi in many Greek mythology books, but from what he had learned, they were extremely rare and shy. A couple herds existed in the wild, but they rarely came near humans. In addition, the pegasi he had read about were white; he had never heard of a black Pegasi.

Percy explained that he soon realized that he could understand the high pitched whiny noise. The creature sounded like it was speaking English to him. Apparently, the pegasi had been kicked out of its herd. All of the other pegasi were white, while it was black.

"Wait a minute," interjected Luke, with a puzzled look on his face, "Horses are racist?"

"Apparently so," replied Percy with a chuckle.

Once Percy realized that he could understand the pegasi, he tried talking to it. To his further astonishment, the pegasi understood what he said. After assuring the pegasi named Blackjack, that he didn't discriminate against black pegasi, the two had spent the next hour talking before Percy had to get back on the train. The pegasi told Percy that while he flew solo, he had a feeling that the two would meet again in the near future.

"So why can I speak to pegasi?" inquired Percy after he had finished telling his story. "You're a demigod, and you can't speak pegasi. He also refused to call me anything but Boss even when I told him repeatedly my name was Percy. That was weird."

Luke took a moment to think. He was sure this was a sign that Percy's godly powers were manifesting. He just wasn't sure which God the powers represented. Luke knew Artemis could speak to animals, but there was no way Percy could be related to her. She was a maiden Goddess. He had heard that Athena could speak to owls, but he was pretty sure it was just owls. He was stumped.

"I have no idea," replied Luke, a frown marring his usually handsome features. "I'm pretty sure it's part of your Godly powers developing - like how I can pick locks because I'm a son of Hermes. I just don't know which God. I've never heard of any God being able to speak to Pegasi."

"No worries," replied Percy. "It's just cool that I can speak to pegasi. The God isn't important at all. I have this power, and I'm going to find a way to use it. That's all that matters. Now, I'm starving? Are you ready to go eat breakfast?"

Luke could only grin back. Percy's positive attitude could be infectious.

_I guess it doesn't matter_, he thought as the two walked to the dining car. _Neither of us are suddenly going to start loving our Godly parent just because we got some cool power from them. It's better to just accept our powers and find the best ways to use them._

**UNTIL THE END OF TIME**

The train arrived in Las Vegas on the evening of the third day without further incident. Although both boys were exhausted from three days of travel, they decided to first find the Lotus Casino before calling it a night. Since they were protected from the magic of the place, they could safely stay there overnight and start searching for Nico in the morning.

After grabbing their luggage from a porter, the two boys found a cab. According to Hades, the Lotus Casino was on the northern end of the Strip, about 20 miles from the train station. Given their fatigued state, neither felt like walking that distance, hence, they hailed a cab.

Surprisingly, when speaking to the cabbies, not a single cab driver had even heard of the Lotus Casino. When they tried to explain the location, they were told that there was nothing there except the ruins of a casino that had been demolished about 20 years prior. Stumped, they decided to Iris Message Hades using the Instant Iris Messenger he had given them.

Hades was relieved to hear they had gotten to Vegas without incident and would be retrieving Nico in the morning. The Lord of the Underworld was worried that the satyr in the casino would somehow escape before they got there and would inform Zeus about Nico's whereabouts.

He explained to the boys that the casino was covered by the Mist. At times, the mist would allow certain mortals to enter. Since the magic of the casino prevented those who entered from leaving, the casino had to be careful about how many mortals were let in or risk overcrowding. Hades told them to tell the taxi driver to take them to the Tropicana. The Lotus Casino was next door.

The demigods ended the Iris Message after promising to call Hades when they had left the casino with Nico. The two gave their cab driver directions and were soon on their way to the Tropicana.

Although Percy had lived his whole life in New York City, he was still amazed by the sights and sounds of Las Vegas. New York City may have had a lot of skyscrapers, but they didn't compare to the buildings in Vegas. In a thirty minute cab ride Percy saw a castle, the Eiffel Tower, a giant sphinx and even a replica Statue of Liberty. Despite the gravity of the mission, Percy couldn't help but stare in childish awe at each new building they passed.

After being dropped off at the Tropicana, the two boys made the five minute walk to the Lotus Casino. Making sure they were each wearing their necklace from Hades, the two demigods took a deep calming breath and walked through the front door of Lotus Casino.

Immediately upon entering, their senses were assaulted by lights, sounds and smells. From what they could see, the Lotus Casino was a playground for both adults and children. The lobby was luxuriously decorated in white marble with a large three-tiered fountain in the center. Guests (or prisoners) milled around the reception counter, where each was given a Lotus Cash Card, with an unlimited sum of money on it that could be used during their stay.

On either side of the lobby were two short hallways. One headed to the children's area of the hotel and the other headed to the casino for adults. The casino contained all of the typical amenities - rows of slot machines, pits of table games and numerous bars. There was also a large dance floor where numerous scantily clad women could be seen gyrating on poles. There were private booths surrounding the dance floor where guests could receive more personalized attention from the dancers.

The children's side of the hotel looked like a giant Fun Zone. Unsupervised kids ran from attraction to attraction as harried workers attempted to keep some semblance of order. The most popular attraction appeared to be a large climbing wall. There were courses of varying difficulty, some spewing fake lava and others themed after a certain part of the world such as the tropics. Other attractions included a giant arcade, a pool with a surf simulator and a giant Playland reminiscent of something found at a fast food restaurant.

Even though they knew it was all a trap, Percy and Luke couldn't help but be impressed but what they saw.

"Holy Zeus," exclaimed Luke, staring around him in awe. "I know this place is a trap and I want to stay forever. You wouldn't even need magic to trap me here."

Putting a hand on Percy's shoulder, Luke led the younger boy to the reception desk. He didn't want the younger boy to get distracted by the attractions and do something foolish. After presenting their passports, the two paid for a room and were given their room keys. The reception desk worker was quick to point out that all the attractions could be paid for using the Lotus Cash Cards he gave them. He also emphasized the abundance of food available, and encouraged them to try out the venue's restaurants as soon as possible.

"That's not gonna happen," muttered Percy under his breath as the two boys took the elevator up to their room on the 33rd floor of the hotel.

While they were in the elevator, the two demigods quietly conversed about their quest.

"We need to find Nico as soon as possible," said Luke, a grim look on his face. "Did you see how much security there was on the main floor? They really want to keep people here and I'm concerned we're going to have problems leaving. We need to get in and out as quickly as possible without attracting attention."

"All of the waiters pushing food on people have me nervous," added Percy, his facial expression mirroring Luke's. "I counted ten waiters with free food just in the lobby. And everyone was taking the food. We're going to look weird when we refuse."

Upon entering their room, both boys were once again astounded by the luxury saw. Although they had only paid for a basic room, the desk clerk had given them a complimentary upgrade to a Junior Suite.

Their Junior Suite consisted of two connected rooms. The living area contained a plush sofa and two recliners situated in front of a flat-screen television. There was a wet bar in the corner stocked with snacks and full-sized bottles of top shelf alcohol. The placard on the counter stated that all of the amenities were included in the price of the room.

The focal point of the bedroom area was an oversized four-poster king bed with sheets made from Egyptian Cotton. There was a small hot tub in the corner with another large flatscreen television above it. The walls were painted gold and silver giving the whole suite a regal appearance to it.

After checking out the room and unpacking, Percy asked Luke what he wanted to do for the rest of the evening.

"As tired as I am, I think we should just go to bed," Luke replied, covering a large yawn with his hand. "We'll be safest in our room. Let's go to bed and get up early so we can get out of here as soon as possible."

Percy nodded his head in agreement.

"Sounds like a plan. Knowing the truth about this place gives me bad vibes. I just want to find Nico and be on our way as early as possible."

In agreement, both boys changed into their pajamas. After watching a couple episodes of _Mythbusters_ on television, the two demigods could barely keep their eyes open. They turned off the tv and within minutes, both had fallen into Morpheus' realm.

**UNTIL THE END OF TIME**

Both demigods were up early the next morning. After eating a quick breakfast of snacks they had packed beforehand, they packed up their rucksacks so they could make a quick exit from the casino after finding Nico. Deciding that the children's area would be the best place to find an 8 year old, the two took the elevator down to the lobby and began searching for Nico.

At first, Percy had wanted to split up while searching. After all, the two demigods would cover more ground if looking separately. While in the lobby however, the two were repeatedly accosted by waiters attempting to serve them food. The only way to get the waiters to go away was for one of them to distract the waiter, while the other took and then discretely disposed of the food. Because of this, they were forced to conduct their search together.

It was Percy who first saw Nico. While he and Luke were checking in the arcade, he caught a glimpse of a young Italian boy on the climbing wall. After checking the passport photo, Percy was near certain that the boy climbing the wall was Nico. He and Luke walked to the climbing wall and waited near the exit for the boy to be done.

Luke took the lead in speaking when Nico exited.

"Hey - are you Nico di Angelo?" he asked, with a broad smile on his face. He was sure that the young demigod would be uncomfortable meeting two strangers. He wanted to appear as harmless and non-threatening as possible.

"We've been sent by your father to speak to you," added Percy, when it became clear Nico wasn't going to respond.

Nico looked at the two demigods with a suspicious glint in his eye. He had been in the casino as long as he could remember and had had no contact with either of his parents. When he first got to the casino, his father had told him that he would be back to pick him up as soon as possible. That seemed like so long ago though. Plus, his sister had left him the day before and he was lonely. The two boys who were speaking to him looked friendly enough - he could trust them, right?

"Yeah, I'm Nico," he replied, trying to keep the suspicion from him voice. "How do you know my father? I haven't seen him in forever. When he left me here, he said he'd be back soon, but that seems like a long time ago. What does he want with me now?"

"Well... we're... ahh... friends of your father," replied Luke, tripping over his words as he tried to describe his relationship with Hades in a way an 8 year old could understand. "Can we go up to our room or yours and talk? There's a lot we need to tell you. I'm Luke and my friend here is Percy."

Nico contemplated their offer for a moment. He wanted to trust these people - he did. The boy around his age seemed so nice even though he'd only spoken once. The older boy seemed trustworthy as well. Something was telling him to trust them. His father had always told him to go with his gut, so he would.

"You can come to my room," he replied. "It's on the first floor."

Walking in front of the two boys, he led them to his room. All three boys took a seat in the suite's living room after entering.

"So what do you need to tell me," inquired Nico, after a couple of minutes of awkward silence. "If it's a message from my father, it must be important. Even when I was younger I only got to see him a couple times per month."

Luke and Percy shared a discrete glance. Neither was sure how to broach the topic of the Gods and their children with Nico. Luke knew Percy had reacted relatively well when he had been told. He had heard stories from other demigods about their reactions to the news, and some of them had ended in disaster.

"Have you ever heard about the Greek Gods?" Luke asked, deciding to go with the direct approach. "Like Zeus, Poseidon and Hades?"

"Like Mythomagic?" asked Nico, excitement evident in voice. "It's a card game I play about Greek mythology. My mom gave it to me when I was young and said it would be important later in life. There are cards and figurines of characters in Greek mythology and you hold battles with them."

"Well kind of..." replied Luke. He had never heard of Mythomagic before, but at least Nico seemed to have some idea about Greek mythology.

"You see, the Greek Gods are real," he added, waiting a minute for Nico's reaction. When nothing happened, he continued, "And sometimes they have children with mortals. For instance, my mother is a regular human and my father is Hermes."

"The God of Messengers and Thieves?" interjected Nico, as he grabbed a figurine of Hermes from a drawer. "Does he really have 500 attack power? Can he really steal anything from anywhere?"

With a laugh, Luke answered, "I'm not sure about the 500 attack power. But he's definitely a good thief. I am as well because I'm his kid. So you believe me? That the gods are real?"

"'Why wouldn't I?" said Nico, a large smile on his face. "This is my biggest dream come true. I love everything about the Gods and mythology. Finding out its real is the coolest thing ever. I have a million questions I want to ask you though. There's so much more I want to learn."

Percy and Luke shared a relieved glance. The night before, they had discussed different ways this conversation could have gone. That included what they would do if Nico didn't believe them. Although they had the Instant Iris Messenger and could contact Hades, Hades had told them that it wouldn't work in the casino. Luckily, Nico had taken the news well.

For the next couple of hours, Luke and Percy took turns sharing what they knew about the Gods, similar to what Luke had done when he first met Percy. They explained the prophecy and why Hades was moving Nico to Alaska and why he had hidden Nico in the first place.

When they were done speaking, Nico was astounded. He had a huge grin on his face and asked them as many questions as he could think of. His whole life he had wished that the stories he read in Greek Mythology were true and now he found out that they were in fact real. It was the best present he could ever receive. Finding out that Hades, his favorite God, was really his father, was just the icing on the cake.

Once the conversation was finished, Luke gave the remaining necklace that warded off the magic of the casino to Nico. Unless he asked, Percy and Luke had decided not to tell him about how long he had really spent in the casino. They concluded it would be too big of a shock for an eight year old. That was something Hades could explain when Nico was safely in Alaska.

After Nico had packed up his belongings, the three went up to Luke and Percy's room and gathered their rucksacks. While in their room, they briefly explained to Nico that the hotel did not want its guests to leave and that they should expect trouble in the lobby. Although Nico was curious as to why, he decided to not worry about it until they had safely made it out of the casino. The three demigods then took the elevator down to the lobby and started walking towards the exit. Before they were able to take three steps though, they were stopped by a large man wearing a Lotus Casino uniform.

"And where are you three going?" he asked, positioning himself between them and the doorway. "Surely your parents are wondering where you are. Why don't you come to the reception desk and we can page them."

Thinking on his feet, Percy quickly replied, "No need to worry sir. Our parents know where we are. They need us to grab some things they forgot in their car."

While Percy was speaking, two security guards had positioned themselves on either side of the man speaking to the demigods. Realizing that they weren't going to let them leave, Luke decided to act.

Under his breath, he muttered to Nico, "I need you to be a distraction. Start yelling and screaming and run right at one of the security guards. While he's distracted, I'll try to take out the one Percy isn't talking to. Otherwise, they're not going to let us go and we have to get you out of here."

Nodding his head in agreement, Nico took a breath and let out as loud of a scream as possible. As he was screaming, he ran towards the security guard, wailing that "he was about to be really sick."

With two of three men in front of them distracted, Luke reached into his pack for his dagger. Setting his pack down, he turned his attention to the second security guard. While the guard was fumbling for his baton, Luke struck, using the blunt side of the dagger to hit the guard in the head. Dropping his baton, the security guard crumpled to his floor.

Seeing his opportunity to attack, Percy ran forward and grabbed the downed guard's baton. As the employee he had been speaking to went to grab his arm to stop him, he twisted around and hit the employee on his left knee. Distracted by the pain, the employee let out a loud grunt before reaching down to clutch his knee. The employee's head now in reach, Percy struck again, this time using the baton to hit the employee in the back of the neck. With one final cry of pain, the employee fell to the floor as well.

Regrouping, Percy and Luke looked around for the final security guard and Nico. While they had been attacking the other two employees, the third had grabbed Nico and was running towards an open door that led to an employees only portion of the casino. Seeing this, the two boys gave chase, dodging the numerous guests mingling in the lobby.

Because of the numerous bystanders, Luke did not want to risk throwing one of his knives at the guard. While he was confident in his aim, he could not predict how the other guests would move. Because of this, there was a high probability his knife would miss his target and injure someone else.

Knowing this, Luke instead decided to use the number of guests in the lobby to his advantage. Between the security guard and the door, there was a line of people checking into the hotel. In order to reach the door, the guard would need to weave in between two of these guests.

Speeding up, Luke ran as hard as he could into the person at the end of the line. Pushing with as much force as he could muster, he caused the person he hit to topple over into the person next to them. In a domino effect, the whole line of people quickly fell into each other, blocking the guard's access to the door.

Percy, seeing what Luke was doing, changed course so he could head the guard off before he could get around the line of fallen guests. He arrived in time, and as the guard was running towards him, he kicked straight upwards, causing his shoe to hit the guard's genitals.

Shrieking in pain, the guard tried to continue forward. The momentary distraction however, had given Luke time to catch up to him. As Percy grabbed Nico, Luke thrust his dagger into the guards foot. In too much pain to continue, the guard fell backwards, passing out before he hit the ground.

With all three boys reunited, they quickly checked the lobby for any more obstacles. Seeing none, the three grabbed hands to prevent being separated again. With adrenaline coursing through their veins from the fight, they bolted toward the doors and were soon outside in the hot Las Vegas sun.

Wanting to get as much distance between them and the casino as soon as possible, they continued to run, not stopping until they had reached the entrance to the Tropicana next door. Hailing a cab, they quickly piled in, instructing the driver to take them to the train station as fast as possible. They bribed the driver with a Lotus Cash card, which must have worked, because the cab's speedometer didn't drop below 95 mph the entire trip.

**UNTIL THE END OF TIME**

Lord Hades sat on his throne in the Underworld watching his viewing pool. Currently, he was overseeing the progress of the two demigods he had sent to retrieve his child from the Lotus Casino. So far, everything seemed to be going according to plan. The two had made the train trip to Las Vegas without difficulty and had easily convinced Nico to leave with them. After a small scuffle in the hotel lobby, they had escaped without a scratch and were now on their way to the train station.

Hades sincerely hoped the rest of the trip would go just as smoothly. Over the years, Hades had sired his share of demigod children. After all, without Persephone around, he got lonely during the summer months. With only the denizens of the Underworld to keep him company, Hades found himself seeking the company of a mortal from time to time during summer. While his affairs were no where as numerous as those of the other Gods, those children he did father often rose to prominence.

Unfortunately, that was not always a positive thing. Hades' children were notorious for abusing the power they inherited from him and going on to become murderers, dictators and megalomaniacs. Because of this, any child he sired was immediately seen in a negative view. With the prophecy of the Big Three, that negative view became that much stronger to the point where Zeus now attempted to kill his children just for being born.

Zeus' actions both angered and saddened Hades. Hades loved all his children, regardless of their actions. Since being regurgitated out of his father's stomach, Hades had wished for just one thing: acceptance from the rest of the family. As the eldest male son of Kronos, one could argue that Hades was the strongest of the Big Three. Unfortunately, Zeus feared his power and after he was assigned the Underworld as his domain, Hades had been all but shunned by the rest of the family.

Because of this, Hades sought to create his own family via his mortal children. He had seen how the other Gods treated their mortal children, and while he wasn't the God of Fatherhood, it didn't seem right the way demigods were just ignored by their parents and used as tools in war. He had seen the resentment build in demigods like Luke Castellan and frankly, he couldn't blame them. He resented his family for shunning him just as the demigods resented their parents for ignoring them.

While it wasn't often said that the Lord of the Underworld had any soft spots, Hades himself knew this be untrue. His greatest soft spot after all was his children. How he longed for the day when he could raise his children free from the interference of both Zeus and the Ancient Laws. The Fates be damned, Hades loved his children and he wanted to show them that love. While he did what he could, breaking the Ancient Laws when possible, it still wasn't enough in his opinion. It was high-time for a change, but sadly, Hades didn't know how to bring that change about.

As Hades continued to muse and watch the progress of the quest, a large ball of golden-orange flames appeared beside him. Turning towards the disturbance, Hades saw a 9 year old girl wearing a golden brown dress appear out of the flames. With a snap of his fingers, a golden throne decorated with images of children playing together appeared besides his throne.

"Hello big sister," Hades drawled, a small smile on his face. Out of all his siblings, Hestia was the only one to truly accept him. As such, she was the only one who knew the truth about Nico and Bianca. He trusted her implicitly and knew that she would not tell the other Olympians the whereabouts of his children.

"You know Hades, you're the only one who still calls me big sister," she replied with a tinkering laugh.

"You'll always be my big sister, no matter what the others say," replied Hades, "What brings you to the Underworld today?"

"Can't I just come to visit my brother?" answered Hestia, an innocent look on her face.

"Actually," she continued, "I was curious to see how the two demigods you selected were doing in taking Nico to Alaska."

Looking down into the viewing pool, Hestia spent a minute watching the three demigods in the cab. As she was watching, a blur of movement in the corner of the screen caught her attention. With a wave of her hand, the viewing pool moved its focus to the entrance of the Lotus Casino.

Outside the entrance, she could see a commotion occurring. A man in his teens was trying to escape the grasp of a security guard. As he finally broke free, his shoes fell off, revealing that the young teen didn't have human legs. Instead, his legs were covered with fur and his feet were actually hooves. It was the satyr, who had been trapped in the casino.

Seeing this, Hades stood up and began to pace. Noticing her brother's agitated state, Hestia shifted to her 18 year old form, stood up and placed a comforting hand on Hades' shoulder.

"What seems to be the problem?" she asked, concern for her brother etched in her features.

"That damn satyr is the reason I had Nico retrieved," Hades spat out angrily. "I was afraid he'd escape and inform others about Nico's existence. Satyrs can smell demigods. Based on that smell, they can determine parentage. If he smelled Nico while he was trapped, he'll know a child of mine exists. Now he's out and free. I can only pray he didn't notice Nico while he was trapped."

Hestia's eyes grew large. It was common knowledge that the Big 3 currently had no children in existence. Therefore, if the satyr smelled Nico, he would definitely tell others. In time, that news would definitely reach Zeus.

"There's nothing we can do now," replied Hestia, attempting to calm down her brother. "I'll head back to Olympus and keep my ears open. If I hear anything, I'll let you know. For now, don't do anything rash. If this news comes out, Zeus will be watching you closely. You can't afford to make any mistakes."

"I know," replied Hades, letting out a sigh. "Thanks for all your help Hestia. Please - keep me posted as soon as you know anything."

The two Gods hugged each other, before Hestia flashed away in a ball of golden flames. Sitting back down, Hades pulled out his Instant Iris Messenger. It was time to let Percy and Luke know that their quest had just gotten a lot more dangerous.

**TO BE CONTINUED**

**Author's Note - **That's Chapter 5 folks! Hope you enjoyed - I know I did. It was fun to include Nico for the first time. I'm also wondering how you enjoyed the scene from Lord Hades' point-of-view. I have more of these planned for various characters, so let me know if you enjoyed it. And now that you're done reading, **PLEASE REVIEW, FAVORITE AND FOLLOW. **Like I said above, I got 5 reviews last chapter. I'd be super happy if Icould get 10 for this chapter. Thanks for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note** \- Hi folks - it's time for Chapter 6! My muse seems to be working in overdrive so it's another nice long chapter like the last few have been. A couple of you mentioned that you enjoyed the scene from Hades' viewpoint last chapter, so I made sure to include a couple different viewpoints when writing this. There's also a fight scene, plus we get our first glimpse of the rest of the Olympian Gods. I hope you enjoy. Please remember to **REVIEW, FOLLOW and FAVORITE **once you're done reading. Can we shoot for **10 REVIEWS **this chapter - that'd make this author super happy! Hope you enjoy and happy reading! Also - make sure to read the author's note at the end. There's a poll question for pairings for future chapters that I'd love your input for.

**Beta Note** \- My chapters are being betaed by the wonderful _**MarissaTodd**_.

**Chapter Warnings** \- Mature language and some violence

"Blah Blah" - Character's Speech

_Blah Blah_ \- Character's Thoughts

**CHAPTER 6**

The three demigods had just arrived at the train station when they received an Iris Message from Lord Hades. Initially, Luke was confused when he felt a vibration in his pocket. He no longer carried a cellphone since he had discovered that their signal attracted monsters. What then, he thought, was causing that infernal vibration in his pocket?

Reaching into his pocket, Luke's hand grabbed various objects, until it gripped the item that was vibrating. Pulling it out, the demigod was relieved to find that it was only the Instant Iris Messenger that had been given to him and Percy by Lord Hades. After pressing the "receive" button, the compact popped open. A rainbow materialized between the two mirrors. In the center of the rainbow, the three demigods could see an image of Hades sitting on his throne.

After exchanging greetings with Hades, Luke reported that they had sucessfully extracted Nico from the casino and were now waiting for the next train to Seattle. Nico, who hadn't seen his father in years, was overjoyed to have a few minutes to reconnect with his father. After finishing his conversation, he handed the compact back to Luke, and Hades informed the group of what he and Hestia had witnessed.

"I have some grave news to report," Hades began, a somber expression on his face. "After you left the casino, I witnessed a satyr escape from the trap. This is the same satyr I feared would discover Nico. I am unsure if he noticed Nico's presence while he was in the casino and as of now, he appears to be focusing on returning to his home. You three need to be exceptionally careful though. If the satyr informs anyone about Nico's parentage, the news will spread and you three will have every monster along with many of the Gods hunting you down."

The three demigods shared concerned looks. Percy and Luke had expected this mission to be relatively easy. All they had to do was get Nico and get him to Alaska. Since no Gods knew Nico was alive, there would be little danger other than the usual threat of monsters. With the added risk of Zeus finding out about Nico's existence however, it appeared that the rest of the journey would be anything but simple.

"Do you have any tips for the remainder of journey, Lord Hades?" inquired Percy, a worried frown marring his face.

In the short time he had known Nico, Percy had become rather attached to the young demigod. Nico always had an upbeat attitude and had taken the news of his parentage extremely well. After hearing some of Luke's stories, Percy would hate for anything to happen to the innocent demigod they had just rescued. Based on Hades' news however, it sounded like they would be fighting an uphill battle.

Before answering Percy's question, Hades paused for a moment to think. There wasn't anything he could do right now to mask Nico's scent or hide him from the other Gods. He would consult a couple minor Gods that worked in the Underworld to see if they could invent anything, but that would take time. The best plan was simply to get Nico to Alaska as quickly as possible.

"As of right now, I don't," replied Hades, who had begun to pace in front of his throne. "Just travel as quickly as possible and try not to stop for anything. If you stay on the move, it will be harder for monsters to track where Nico has been. The other Gods will be less likely to detect his presence too. Other than that, check in with me every night and I'll update you if there's any news."

After thanking Hades for the advice and allowing Nico to say his goodbyes, the demigods ended the Iris Message.

For the next hour, the three demigods waited for the train to depart. Although Nico's existence was not yet known to Zeus, they decided to keep a low profile anyways. Because of this, rather than waiting in the train station with the rest of the passengers, they passed the hour by walking along a path that headed into the desert. The three remained silent, each lost in their own thoughts of what might occur in the days to come.

When the call to board the train finally came, the boys were extremely relieved. They would soon be on their way to Seattle and would be that much closer to safety for Nico. As the three settled into their compartment for their journey, each hoped the rest of their mission would not be fraught with danger and disaster.

**UNTIL THE END OF TIME**

Zeus was in the middle of an Olympic Council meeting when he received an urgent message from his daughter Ate, the Minor Goddess of Blind Folly and Ruin. Deciding to pause the meeting so he could speak to his daughter, Zeus threw a drachma into a nearby fountain. He was soon greeted by the sight of Ate standing in front of the MGM Grand Casino in Las Vegas.

Ate explained that she was currently visiting Las Vegas. As the Minor Goddess of Blind Folly and Ruin, it was her duty to appear whenever a gambler lost a significant sum of money in a casino. After all, that was partially the definition of ruin. Ate had just finished a job at the Wynn Casino when she ran into a distressed satyr.

The satyr, Grover, informed her that he had been tracking half bloods when he fell into the Lotus Casino's trap. While he was imprisoned, he had smelled the scent of a demigod. He traced the scent to a young boy of Italian descent playing on the climbing wall in the children's play area. Although he never identified himself to the demigod, he was able to get close enough to the boy to determine that he was a son of Hades. Somehow, smelling this scent of the demigod freed him from the magic of the casino. After realizing just how long he had been at the casino for, he decided to escape.

After leaving and making his way into Las Vegas, Grover searched for the demigod that he had seen in the casino. While he was searching, he had run into Ate. Since Grover knew that the Big Three had vowed not to have children, he informed Ate of the demigod's existence. Ate, in turn, was informing her father that Hades had fathered a son.

Upon ending the Iris Message Zeus became enraged. Any child of the Big Three could easily bring about the ruin of Olympus. Hades knew that and had agreed to take the vow not to have more children. Even so, he had succumbed to his selfish desires and now Zeus' power was threatened. Zeus had ruled for too long to have a mere mortal threaten his power. The child of Hades was a direct threat to his rule of Olympus and there was only one solution to that problem - death!

Deciding to put the issue to a vote, Zeus reconvened the Olympic Council. He immediately brought the new topic to the council's attention.

"Fellow Olympians," he began, his voice filled with controlled rage. "I have just been informed that Hades has broken his oath on the Styx and has spawned a mortal child. This child could be a direct threat to the power of us Olympians. As you all know, the prophecy of the Big Three stated that a child of the Big Three could raze Olympus. We must act swiftly and decisively. Our rule as Gods must not be threatened by this mortal upstart. We must vote to have the son of Hades killed!"

The rest of the Olympians looked between themselves in worry. The last millennia had been peaceful. While the center of Western Civilization had moved several times, there had been no major threats to Gods' rule. The Olympians wanted this peace to last, and unfortunately, the child was a direct threat to their peace.

Athena was the first to speak. As the Goddess of Wisdom, all of her arguments were based on logic. In her opinion, it was logically best to eliminate a potential threat before it became an actual threat.

"I agree with my father," she stated matter of factly. "This child could be a threat to us and logic dictates that we remove any threats. I vote to have the child killed."

One by one, the other Olympians began to speak, agreeing with Zeus and Athena's decision. Dionysus, the God of Wine and Madness, simply wanted to kill the child so he would have one less brat to watch over at Camp Halfblood. Artemis, who hated all men, saw this as an opportunity to eliminate one more member of the male species. Even Hermes, the usually fun-loving trickster God voted yes, simply because he was resentful that Hades did not allow him direct access to his throne room. Instead, each time he had to deliver a message to the Underworld, he was forced to go the long way, paddling his own boat down the River Styx.

In the corner of the throne room, the Goddess Hestia sat by her hearth and watched in growing horror as the innocent son of Hades was damned to death. Unfortunately, year prior, Hestia had given her throne to Dionysus to prevent an argument. Although she was an Olympian and was allowed to give input during meetings of the Olympic Council, she did not have a vote. Therefore, she could do very little to affect the outcome of the current situation.

She knew her family was power hungry and anything she said would not sway their decision. Knowing this, she vowed to flash to the Underworld as quickly as possible once the meeting ended. Hopefully, she could reach Hades before any of the other Gods had a chance to find his son.

Surprisingly, the only opposition to the vote came from Apollo. Typically, the God of the Sun was viewed as an airhead, who only cared about his appearance and bedding women. As Apollo sat in his throne watching his fellow Gods condemn an eight year old child to death for simply being born however, the God of the Sun felt a great sadness inside of him.

Over the years, Apollo had sired numerous demigod children. Although he did follow the Ancient Laws, he loved each of his children as his own and was devastated whenever one died. He imagined how he would feel if it were his son they were voting to kill just for being a son of Apollo. It sickened him that the Council was so eager to kill a child and he decided to make his views known.

"This is revolting," he said, looking at each member of the council in disgust. "This child is innocent. He has done nothing wrong except be born to the wrong father. And yet here we sit, voting to kill him when his father isn't even present. The prophecy clearly states that this child could either raze or save Olympus. You are damning the potential savior of Olympus to death. It is impossible to stop a prophecy. Right now, I feel ashamed to call myself an Olympian."

Rising from his throne, Apollo began to pace, directing his comments to the individual Olympians who had voted in favor of death.

He turned to Artemis first, his blue eyes filled with sadness and regret.

"I'm saddened by your decision, sister," he began, each of his words filled with sorrow. "Imagine if that child was one of your hunters. Would you be so quick to damn the child then? You condemn men for existing, yet it is you who wants to kill an eight year old. You are no better than the men you and your hunters decry. If this child dies because of your vote, I vow on the Styx to sever my ties as brother to you."

Apollo next turned his fury to Athena. The Goddess of Wisdom had never shown him any respect, constantly belittling him for his perceived lack of intelligence. Yet here he stood, the only God who could see that they were murdering a child whose destiny had yet to be written.

"You accuse me of being stupid," he stated, his eyes filled with fury, "Yet you are the one who is willing to kill a child because of a probable outcome. I am the God of Prophecy. This prophecy has two distinct outcomes. How then, is it logical that we kill a child because of something which has yet to occur?"

As Apollo continued to speak, the rest of the Olympians began to converse amongst themselves. While Apollo's words rang true, they were still frightened of the fact that a mortal child could bring about their downfall. Seeing that their votes for the death of the child were beginning to waver, Zeus decided that the debate had gone on long enough. With a loud clap of thunder, he drew the Olympian's attention to him and brought the issue to a vote.

"The time for debate is done," he said. "The child is a threat and it is time to vote for the child's fate. Does anyone disagree that the child should be killed?"

Unsurprisingly, Apollo was the only one to raise his hand. Making sure to give each Olympian a look that promised retribution, he quickly flashed away, intent on travelling to the Underworld so that he could inform his Uncle Hades of the council's decision.

With Apollo gone, the rest of the council quickly voted that Nico should be killed. Before ending the meeting, Zeus gave his instructions on how the boy was to be found. Artemis and her hunters were instructed to track the boy based on his scent (using their camp's wolves) and immediately kill him should they find him. Dionysus was told to also kill Nico, should he show up at Camp Half-Blood. The rest of the Gods were to send any monsters they had under their disposal after the boy. Zeus would attempt to track Nico himself, since he could see the entire world from his dominion in the sky.

With his instructions given, Zeus called the meeting to a close. He was confident that the boy would be found soon and the threat to his power eliminated. Egotistically, he didn't even think that Hades would notice his brat missing once he died. After all, when Zeus himself fathered children, he often lost track of his kids for many years. He was the ruler of Olympus and had better uses of his time than watching after a bunch of mortal brats.

As the remaining Gods and Goddesses in the Council Chamber flashed back to their temples, no one noticed the young girl in the corner giving each of them poisonous looks. As soon as the last God left, Hestia resumed her 15 year-old form and quickly flashed away to the Underworld. This innocent child would not be dying on her watch!

**UNTIL THE END OF TIME**

Hades had just finished conversing with Hecate, the Minor Goddess of Witchcraft, when he caught a glimpse of gold flames out of the corner of his eye. As the Goddess of Ghosts and Necromancy, Hecate's domains included the Underworld. Because of this, she was one of Hades' closest confidants and was completely loyal to him. Thus, Hades felt safe in coming to her and asking for her help in hiding Nico's scent from the rest of the Olympians. Although Hecate had no immediate solutions to the problem, she promised to devote her full attention to issue and attempt to invent a device the would make Nico invisible to their other Gods.

Right as Hecate was leaving, Hades became aware of another presence in his throne room. Turning around, he once again saw Hestia appear in a billow of gold flames. Unlike the last time he had seen her however, Hestia was anything but her normal clam self. As the flames receded, Hades could see that Hestia was fuming. Her normally warm-gold colored eyes were solid black and she had phased into her older, 15-year old form.

Snapping his fingers, Hades made the same throne as before appear beside his throne. Gesturing for her to sit down, Hades also took a seat and inquired what had happened to put her in such a state. Hestia was typically the calm one amongst their six siblings. She was the peacemaker. When others had disputes they went to her and discussed their issues without risk of judgement around her hearth. Hades could not recall the last time he had ever seen his elder sister in this state of rage.

As Hestia began to recount the events of the most recent Olympic Council meeting, Hades could easily see why she was in her current state. Soon, Hades rage exceeded hers. As black shadows began encroaching into the throne room, Hades could stand to hear no more. The Olympians had voted to kill his son!

"My fucking brothers are going to pay," Hades bellowed, not paying attention to the fact that he had just interrupted his elder sister mid-sentence. "They have gone too far this time. I didn't do anything when Zeus killed my mortal lover. That showed him I was weak. I will not be weak this time. I will bring war to Olympus!"

As Hades stood up, preparing to flash to Olympus where he would declare war on Zeus, he was distracted by the feeling of a hand clutching his arm. Looking down, he saw that Hestia was attempting to stop him from flashing away. Realizing that he needed to calm down before he did something rash, Hades sat back on his throne and took a deep breath.

"Peace, brother," said Hestia, looking at Hades in concern. "Don't do anything you'll regret. Right now, the Olympians don't know that you know of their decision. If you keep it that way, it will be much easier for you to help Nico. Please, I beseech of you, if you want to keep Nico safe don't do anything until he reaches safety. You can have your revenge once your son is safe."

Looking slightly ashamed, Hades nodded his head. He knew his sister spoke the truth and was only looking out for his and his son's best interest.

"So what should I do?" he asked Hesita looking slightly lost. "I can't directly interfere on the mortal plane or Zeus will immediately be informed of my presence. It's his realm after how can I help Nico and the other two without Zeus taking notice?"

Hestia paused to think for a moment before she responded. When Hades had asked Luke and Percy to bring his son to Alaska, he had issued a quest. Since the Ancient Laws forbid Gods from helping demigods with quests, she and Hades could not do anything to directly interfere with the progress of Luke and Percy's quest. As the keeper of the Ancient Laws, Zeus would be immediately informed of any interference. Although he typically ignored such acts, she knew that would not be the case this time. Because of this, they could only give indirect help to the three demigods.

"We can't directly help the three of them," replied Hestia. "The Ancient Laws forbid it and Zeus would be notified. For the moment, all we can do is inform them of the threat. Since doing so isn't providing direct help, it should be allowed by the Ancient Laws."

Hades nodded in agreement, resigned to the fact that the fate of his child was outside his hands. As he reached into his pocket to grab his Instant Iris Messenger however, he was distracted by a loud voice yelling his name. Looking up, he saw Apollo running into his throne room.

"Uncle Hades," began Apollo, panting as if he was out of breath, "I need to tell you something important. Your son's life is in danger. Zeus knows about him and has ordered his immediate death."

Looking at Hestia, Hades raised his eyebrow. When he had interrupted her, Hestia had yet to inform him if any of the Gods disagreed with Zeus' decision. Based on Apollo's presence, it seemed as though he had at least one more supporter on his side. This greatly surprised him, as Apollo had never stuck him as the type to defy his father's orders. In the past, Apollo had seemed perfectly content to do whatever his father ordered of him even if he personally disagreed with it.

With a newfound respect for his nephew, Hades gestured at Apollo to take a seat in a throne he had just created. After sitting down, Apollo continued to speak.

"This satyr, Grover, saw your son in Las Vegas. He ran into the Goddess Ate and told her what he saw. Ate told her father Zeus and now the whole council knows. Besides myself, they all voted to condemn him to death. I don't care whether you broke the oath or not. This is an innocent child. Zeus has gone too far this time. Gods are supposed to care about the mortals that worship them. I can no longer, in good conscience, support Zeus' actions. That's why I came here as quick as possible to tell you what happened."

"Thank you for informing me, nephew," replied Hades, the gratitude he felt toward Apollo clearly evident. "Hestia was just telling me of the same situation. She observed the whole meeting from her place by the hearth. My son, Nico, is currently being escorted to Alaska where he can safely hide from Zeus. Hestia and I were just discussing ways to keep him and his escorts safe on the journey. We were about to Iris Message them to inform them of these new developments."

Nodding his head, Apollo processed the new information. As he thought of ways he could indirectly help Nico, he watched as Hades opened a black compact mirror. To his surprise, a rainbow appeared inside the mirror. A couple of seconds later he could see Hades' son's face along with two other faces in the middle of the rainbow.

For the next twenty minutes, Hades, Luke, Percy, Nico, Hestia and Apollo spoke about the recent Olympic Council meeting and the repercussions it had on the quest. Although the three Gods could tell that Luke and Percy were quite nervous about the obstacles they were going to face, the two demigods resolutely promised to protect Nico with their life.

Impressed by their actions, Apollo questioned the two why they were so willing to protect someone they had just met. It was Luke who responded.

"I hate how the Gods, including my father, treat their demigods," he replied. "From birth, we demigods are damned to a short and harsh life with little to no help from our Godly parent. The Gods are wrong in how they treat their kids and by helping Nico, I'm defying the Gods who would take an innocent life. It's well-worth it to me. It's the same reason I've been helping Percy. His Godly family abandoned him. Together, we've become a new family"

The three Gods were surprised by the level of passion Luke displayed. While they knew demigods were generally treated poorly by their Godly parent, they never realized just how hard life as a demigod was. Silently, each of three Gods vowed to do whatever they could to make demigods' lives easier.

After promising to keep the three demigods appraised of any new information, the three Gods ended the Iris Message. They spent the rest of the evening planning ways they could help get Nico to Alaska safely, without interfering directly in the quest. It was difficult work, but worth it to each God. After all, if the God's wouldn't protect an innocent life, who would?

**UNTIL THE END OF TIME**

The three demigods on the train to Seattle had just passed the midway marker for this portion of their journey. Earlier that afternoon, the three had received an Iris Message from Hades, Hestia and Apollo informing them that the rest of the Olympians knew of Nico's existence. Although Percy and Luke were apprehensive about the rest of the journey, they vowed to protect Nico to the best of their ability.

Nico had become their friend and they refused to allow him to die because the Gods stupidly saw him as a threat to their power. Nico was an innocent eight-year old child - he was certainly not making plans to raze Olympus (although if he lived through this quest he just might). While Nico agreed, he felt bad about involving two innocent kids in his problems and just wanted to make it to Alaska as soon as possible. Although he had made friends with the other two demigods, he knew it would be safer for all of them once they separated in Alaska.

As the afternoon wore on, the three boys alternated between playing board games, watching television and talking about their lives to pass the time. The three were surprised to discover that their childhoods had many similarities. As young children, each of them had felt like outcasts. Percy and Luke were only children and while Nico had a sister, she was four years older than him and preferred to spend as little time with him as possible.

Because of this, all three sought friends at school. Due to their ADHD and dyslexia however, the demigods each found it difficult, if not impossible, to make friends with the "normal" kids. Other children made fun of them for their problems in school and the teachers often singled them out as troublemakers because of their inability to sit still and pay attention. Each had felt like an outcast, even in a room full of people their own same age.

Owing to this, each of the demigods had sought solace in a fantasy world. Nico loved the game Mythomagic, and had spent his childhood learning about Greek Mythology. He collected both the figurines and the cards and the only friends he had were fellow players of the game. Luke and Percy on the other hand, had both collected Pokemon cards. As young children, they had been avid fans of the series, and both still kept their collection of cards. To pass the time on the train, they taught Nico how to play and in return, he taught them Mythomagic.

Around six pm that evening, the three demigods were just getting ready to go to the dining car for dinner. The tickets they had purchased included all their meals, and in their rush to leave Las Vegas, they hadn't had time to buy food for the trip.

As they were about to leave their car, they felt to train lurch to a sudden stop. Looking out their compartment's window, they were mystified as to why the train had stopped. The train was in the middle of the desert and there was no sign of civilization nearby.

Deciding to investigate, the three cautiously made their way out of their compartment and into one of the train's dome cars. Other passengers were milling about, also wondering what had caused the delay.

Suddenly, an ear piercing scream rang through the crowd. Looking around, the three saw the cause of the scream. A large stymphalian bird was repeatedly nose-diving into the top of the car attempting to break through the glass. Frightened passengers were running from the car, fearing what would happen if the bird was able to break through. At the same time, in the distance, the three could see a minotaur standing on the train tracks blocking the train's progress. The conductor was yelling at him to move, but he refused to budge.

Deciding that it would be easiest to fight the monsters outside of the train where there were fewer bystanders, the three demigods grabbed their weapons and exited the car. Luke took his dagger, Percy grabbed the knives he had used fighting the karpoi and Nico grabbed the baton he had stolen from the casino's security guard.

As the three exited the car, Luke described their plan.

"The minotaur is our biggest threat," he stated, looking at the two other demigods in worry. "It's big and it's vicious. We need to take out the bird quickly so that we can then all focus on killing the minotaur. As soon as we get outside, the bird will aim for Nico. I want Nico to stay about ten feet in front of us so Percy and I can surprise the bird with an attack."

With their plan decided, Nico took up the lead. Pausing for a second to gain his confidence, he sent a quick prayer to his father for safety. With his confidence boosted, he exited the train and crouched down preparing for the bird's attack.

Like Luke had predicted, the bird immediately started flying towards Nico the second he was outside the relative safety of the train car. While the bird was distracted by its attack on Nico, Luke jumped off the top step leading into the train car. With his dagger pointing outwards, he landed about two feet behind Nico. As soon as the bird swooped down to attack, he thrust his dagger forward, successfully slicing half of one of the bird's wings off.

As the bird was flapping its remaining good wing in pain however, Luke lost his footing. He tumbled forward directly into the bird's good wing. As that wing flapped back into him, he was thrown backwards, his dagger flying out of his hand.

Percy had stayed behind near the train door waiting in case the minotaur also attacked at the same time. Seeing that Luke had fallen and was defenseless while trying to reclaim his weapon, he decided to act. As Nico tried unsuccessfully to beat the bird off with his baton, Percy ran forward. With the bird focusing his attack on Nico, it was easy for Percy to simply stab the bird from behind. With one final screech, the stymphalian bird fell to the ground and quickly turned into a pile of gold dust.

As the three demigods regrouped and gathered their weapons, they turned their attention to the minotaur. While they had been fighting the stymphalian bird, the minotaur had moved off the train track and had been discretely heading towards the group of demigods.

"I'm only here for the forbidden child," he roared as he began to charge toward them. "As long as the other two of you don't attack, you are free to go. I only have orders to kill Hades' spawn."

Luke and Percy looked between themselves and then at the minotaur. Moving to stand in a defensive position in front of Nico, the two made it clear that they had no plans of abandoning Nico.

Under his breath, Percy muttered, "Nico, stay right here. Your baton won't be much good against the minotaur. I'm going to distract the minotaur while Luke goes in for the kill."

With that said, Percy rushed towards the charging monster. With a swing of his spiked tail, the minotaur attacked. As the tail headed towards Percy, he nimbly crouched down, using his small size to his advantage. As soon as the tail flew over his head, he thrust upward with one of his knives, causing the knife to sink directly into the fleshy part of the tail.

As the minotaur bellowed in pain, Percy nimbly darted around, avoiding the minotaur's tail attacks and stabbing at it whenever it came near. Seeing his opening, Luke also rushed towards the minotaur. While the minotaur had its attention focused on Percy, he ran around to its backside. With a running leap, Luke jumped forward and grabbed onto the minotaur's back, beginning to climb towards its head.

As the minotaur thrashed to and fro, attempting to knock Luke off its back, his tail connected with Percy, who had been going in for another knife strike. Percy was knocked off his feet and thrown into the air, landing about thirty feet away with a sickening thud.

Seeing that his friend had been injured, Nico rushed towards Percy. Unfortunately, as he was only paying attention to Percy, Nico did not take into account the location of the minotaur. Therefore, as he ran towards Percy, Nico was shocked when the minotaur grabbed him and lifted him off the ground.

As Nico was grabbed by the minotaur and viciously thrown to the ground like Percy, Luke realized he had to end this fight soon. He knew that Percy had been knocked out when he landed on the ground and it appeared Nico had passed out from hitting the ground too. He was the only fighter of the three left. If he failed, they all were dead.

Hoping he was close to the heart, Luke prepared to use his dagger to strike the minotaur. Thrusting forward with his dagger, Luke saw his weapon enter the minotaur's body. As blood spattered everywhere, the minotaur let out an inhuman scream. As the monster lost his balance, he began to fall backwards.

Realizing that he would be crushed by the falling monster, Luke realized he needed to bail quickly. Leaning to the right, he let go of the monster using his legs to kick off. As he launched himself away from the minotaur, he used his hands to protect his head for the inevitable fall.

His last thought before he hit the ground was, _Gods I hope that minotaur turns to gold dust before it lands on me!_

**TO BE CONTINUED**

**A/N: **That's it for Chapter 6 folks. Hope you enjoyed. Sorry for all you Grover fans out there, but he's not exactly going to be Luke and Percy's best friend once they find out that it was him who led the Gods to Nico. As for Apollo - he's one of my favorite Gods. I couldn't resist putting him on the "good" guys team.

As you go to **REVIEW**, I have two poll questions that I would like you to answer. They concern pairings for some characters in future chapters...

**Poll Question #1** \- Who do you want paired with Ethan N? Ethan is going to be on Percy and Luke's side and will be a pretty major character. I would prefer another slash pairing, but I'm open to anything.

**Poll Question #2 **\- Who do you want paired with Annabeth? I'm not sure yet if Annabeth will be siding with Percy and Luke. The results of this poll will most likely determine this.

I'm going to keep the poll open until Chapter 10 is posted. Then I'll tally up the votes and we'll have the winners. So let me know what you think. I'm always open to other plot suggestions as well - so when you **REVIEW **please speak your mind!


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note - **I'm back with Chapter 7. A pretty major event occurs in this chpater so enjoy reading! It's also even longer than the last couple of chapter have been - my muse has been in overdrive, which is a good thing for all you readers. Thanks to everyone who left reviews last chapter - I didn't quite make it to my goal, but I still got a lot of thoughtful reviews with answers to my poll question. The poll is still running (and will be until Chapter 10 is poster), so if you haven't had a chance yet, leave your vote in a review. If you don't remember the poll questions, check the bottom of this chapter. I've reposted the two questions there. Other than that, when you're done reading, please remember to **REVIEW, FAVORITE and FOLLOW! **I'm still trying to make it to **10 REVIEWS **in one chapter and your help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance and enjoy reading this chapter!

**Beta Note** \- My chapters are being betaed by the wonderful _**MelissaTodd.**_

**Chapter Warnings - **Character Death, Mature Language and Some Violence

**Flame Response - **I was extremely disheartened to get a "flame" review from a guest reviewer named Matt last chapter. Basically, the review said that I should stop writing this story and never write again since the summary of this story says that Nico is going to die. Basically, according to him, my story sucks because I'm going to kill Nico. I was quite saddened to get this review. I work extremely hard writing these chapters. I like to write and its something I think I'm pretty good at. That being said, I hate this type of negativity. So "Matt" - did you even read my story or just the summary? If you read my story, why did you even bother. If you knew it was going to bother you so much if Nico died, you should have stopped at the summary. Plus, I'm not going to stop writing just because you're angry that I killed off one character. AND - if you had read my review responses in previous chapters, a different reviewer asked why Nico was a main character if he was going to die. The answer - think about his father. His father is the LORD OF THE UNDERWORLD. Eugghh - Sorry to my loyal and POSITIVE readers and reviewers, but I had to get that off my chest. *END RANT*

"Blah Blah" - Character's Speech

_Blah Blah - Character's Thoughts_

**CHAPTER 7**

**DREAM SEQUENCE**

_Luke found himself standing in the middle of a dense forest of pines. Tall trees surrounded him on all sides and the sounds of wild animals could be heard in the distance. It was nighttime. The sky was pitch black and the only source of light was the small amount of luminescence provided by the waning quarter of the moon. A light haze in the air covered all of the stars and the occasional gust of wind brought about a chill reminiscent of the last weeks of fall._

_For some reason, Luke's subconscious knew that the images around him were imagined. Although he wasn't sure why he had fallen asleep, the demigod remembered that prior to falling asleep he had been in the desert. He, Percy and Nico had been on a train to Seattle which had been travelling through Northern Nevada. The nearest pine forest akin to the one he was standing in was hundreds of miles of away, and thus he reasoned that he must be dreaming._

_Deciding to investigate his surroundings, Luke began to walk down a small dirt path that had materialized in front of him. After walking for about five hundred feet, the young demigod came to a small clearing in the forest. There was a downed tree in the middle of the clearing and as he walked closer to it, Luke could see the silhouette of a man sitting on top of it._

_When Luke was about twenty feet away from the log, the man turned around to face him. The unknown man had bleach blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. He was wearing a pair of ripped blue jeans and a Nike Track Jacket. Despite the chill in the air, the man's very presence seemed to radiate warmth and light. From their conversation via Iris Message earlier that day, Luke recognized the man as Apollo, God of the Sun._

_"Lord Apollo?" Luke asked, as he sat down on the log next to him. "What are you doing in my dreams? Is everything okay with Percy and Nico? And why is it night? I was under the assumption that you preferred blue skies and sunny beaches."_

_Apollo repositioned himself so he was facing the now seated Luke. His eyes traveled up and down the boy's body searching for any signs of visible injury. He let out an audible sigh of relief when he found none._

_"Hades, myself and Hestia were watching the progress of your quest and saw the fight you three had with the minotaur and stymphalian bird. When we saw that you three had all passed out, I was sent to investigate being the God of Medicine. Percy and Nico both quickly awoke and were injury free. You however, are still passed out, twenty minutes after jumping off the minotaur's back. I was concerned and decided to visit you in your dreams."_

_As Apollo spoke, images of his fight against the minotaur raced through Luke's mind. He was relieved to discover that Percy and Nico had made it through the fight unscathed. Their plan had worked!_

_"Thankfully," continued Apollo, "You look to be alright. Drink a little nectar when you get up and you should be 100% good to go."_

_Luke nodded his head, his eyes showing his gratitude towards Apollo. While he felt alright, it was extremely reassuring knowing that the God of Medicine had declared he and his party injury free. With a silent laugh, Luke realized there were now three Gods he respected - Hades, Hestia and Apollo. While Apollo had made mistakes in the past concerning his demigod children and mortal lovers, he was at least trying to make up for his past errors._

_Still, Luke was curious why Apollo had chosen to meet in him in the middle of the night. From everything he had read, it was Artemis, Apollo's twin, who was symbolized by the night. Deciding to press the issue, he asked once again._

_"Not to be disrespectful Lord Apollo," Luke began, "But I really am curious as to why we're meeting in a forest. I've spoken to other demigods who have told me about their dreams where they've spoken to the Gods. They said the God always picked a location to meet in that represented that God's domains."_

_Apollo looked around the two's surroundings and let out a humorless chuckle. With a sigh and a shake of his head, he began to speak._

_"Zeus is keeping an extremely close eye on me," Apollo stated. "He no longer trusts me since I voted not to kill Nico. In his paranoia, he thinks I'm teaming up with Hades to overthrow him. Apparently, we're using Nico as our weapon. Morpheus sometimes eavesdrops on Godly dreams and has been known to report what he sees to Zeus. In case he does, I created a location that no one would associate with me. It's the best way to cover my tracks."_

_Pausing for a moment, Apollo reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small flute. After snapping his fingers, the flute glowed gold for a moment. Once the glow had died down, he handed the flute to Luke._

_"You need to wake up soon," Apollo continued. "Percy and Nico are getting worried. Before you go though, I need to tell you two things. First, the flute I just gave you allows you to contact me at anytime. Simply play any three notes, and I'll come to you as quickly as possible. Like I said though, I'm being watched by Zeus. Only use it if it's a real emergency. When you wake, the flute will appear in your pocket."_

_Luke examined the flute Apollo had just given him. It was about 5 inches long and appeared to be made out of solid gold. The flute was plain, except for a small engraving of the sun near the mouthpiece. After murmuring his thanks to Apollo, the young demigod placed the flute in his pocket._

_"I also want to give you a piece of advice," said Apollo, after Luke had examined the flute. "Take of this what you will. As you know, I'm the God of Prophecy. In recent years, several prophecies have been given speaking about a great change that will come to our world. From what I can see, you and Percy will play an instrumental part in this change. I can't say anything more, but just remember to always follow your instincts and your heart. Don't let your views and beliefs be corrupted and swayed by others."_

_Luke looked at Apollo, a contemplative frown on his face._

_I'm only eleven, he thought. How can my actions bring about change? Yes, I'm unhappy with many things in my life, but I don't have the power to do much as of right now. Maybe he means later in my life?_

_Luke didn't respond for a few minutes, as he waited for Apollo to say more. When he realized the God of Prophecy wasn't going to give any more information, Luke thanked him for the help he had given and said goodbye. The God responded in kind and with a flash of light, he disappeared. Slowly, the images around Luke began blurring until he could only see darkness._

**END DREAM SEQUENCE**

Percy and Nico stood over the unconscious form of Luke with worried expressions on their faces. Unlike the youngest two demigods, who had healed quickly from injuries caused by the minotaur, Luke had remained unresponsive for over thirty minutes following the fight. Even giving nectar, which usually instantly healed demigods, had failed to rouse Luke from his current state.

Because of this, Percy and Nico were unsure what to do next. The two could not carry Luke any great distance. Although they had been able to move his body to a shaded location, Percy and Nico did not have the strength to move him any further. Unfortunately, the train they had been riding on had departed while all three were unconscious and because of that, they were stranded in the desert.

While Percy and Nico were discussing ways to get help, they were startled to hear groaning noises coming from Luke. Running over to where they had moved his body to, the two were elated to see his fingers twitching and his eyes flickering open.

"Luke, Luke!" Percy shouted with a huge grin on his face. "You're awake. How do you feel?"

Struggling to sit up, Luke checked over his body for signs of injury. Like Apollo had said in his dream, he appeared to be injury free. While he was a bit sore from hitting the ground after falling off the minotaur's back, at least the fight had done no permanent damage to his body.

Once he finally sat up after a couple of moments of struggle, Luke motioned for the other two demigods to come closer. With a huge smile on his face, he pulled them in for a hug. Luke was extremely relieved that they too hadn't suffered any damage from the he had believed what Apollo had told him in the dream, it was still a massive relief to see his friends uninjured in person.

After separating himself from the hug, Luke began to speak.

"I'm a bit sore but other than that I feel fine. I'm glad to see you guys are alright too. I know we just fought the minotaur, but we need to get moving as quickly as possible. We need to follow the train tracks to the next station so we can find a new train to ride. I'm not sure how far that is, but it's the only way we'll be guaranteed to get to civilization."

Nico and Percy nodded their heads in agreement. Reaching into his rucksack, Percy grabbed a map of Nevada that he had gotten at the train station in Las Vegas. Luckily, all three demigods had taken their bags with them when they got off the train to fight the minotaur. Because of this, they still had their supplies with them.

From what Percy remembered, the last station the train had stopped in had been in Silver Springs. According to the map, the next station along the tracks was in Fernley, about twenty miles north of Silver Springs. Percy estimated that the train had already covered at least half of that distance. That meant that the three demigods had to hike about ten miles to make it to the nearest city. With dusk fast approaching, Percy knew the three had to get moving soon.

After relaying the new information to Luke and Nico, Percy placed the map back in his rucksack. He took out his only full bottle of water and after taking a swig, offered it to his two companions. With night fast approaching, the temperature in the desert was cooling, but it was still extremely hot for a ten mile walk. After all three demigods had quenched their thirst, Percy placed the water bottle back in his pack and the three began their hike.

The first three miles of the hike went smoothly. The terrain was even and the train tracks followed a straight path. Despite the high temperature, there were ample shrubs surrounding the tracks that provided a good amount of shade. There was still plenty of daylight left, and the demigods felt confident they would reach the next city before nightfall.

At about the three mile marker of the hike however, the demigods faced a major obstacle. In between Silver Springs and Fernley was the Lahontan Reservoir - a large lake with several tributaries that extended in all directions. The only way to get across the lake was to walk on the narrow train tracks which were laid on a bridge. The bridge, which crossed the lake, was both long and narrow. If a train were to come while the boys were crossing the bridge, they would be crushed unless they jumped 200 feet down into the water below. It was a dangerous route to take.

Sadly, the only other option the three demigods had for crossing was to swim across the lake. Hades had warned them to avoid the water however, as that was his brother Poseidon's domain. In addition, Nico had never swam before and according to the map, the lake was up to 60 feet deep.

After discussing their options, Luke decided that the group would cross the bridge via the train tracks.

"Our only option is to use the tracks," he said. "We have to move quickly and as a group. The bridge is about 1000 feet long and has no railings on the sides. We can hold onto each other for balance and hopefully, we'll make it across without problems."

Percy and Nico shared nervous glances. Neither had ever been fond of heights and the bridge stood at least two hundred feet above the water. Unfortunately, they both knew Luke was correct. Crossing the bridge was the better of two bad options and they had no choice but to do so if they wanted to make it to Fernley by dusk.

The three demigods prepared to cross the bridge. After making sure the weight in their packs was evenly distributed, they linked themselves together by grabbing the person's waist in front of them. Slowly, they began to walk across the narrow bridge making sure not to look down at the lake below them.

The three had made it about two hundred feet when they heard a loud splashing noise. Startled, they abruptly stopped walking, almost tumbling into each other. After regaining their balance, Luke volunteered to look down to see what had caused the noise.

Taking a deep breath, Luke slowly moved his gaze to the water below him. At first, he didn't see anything out of the ordinary. The water was crystal clear and other than a couple of large boulders, he could see nothing but teal blue water. As he was about to inform Percy and Nico of this, Luke saw a giant shadow moving in the water from out under the bridge. Gradually, the shadow moved closer to surface and with another large splash, the shadow surfaced.

Luke's eyes grew large as he realized what he was seeing. The shadow below him was a sea serpent that was at least two hundred feet long. It had a slim, snake-like body with green scales that glistened in the sunlight. There was a stinger on the tail end of the serpent and Luke could see drops of poison oozing out of it. Before he could even react, the sea serpent had focused its attention on three demigods on the bridge.

"I have found the ssson of Hadesss," the serpent said, its voice taking on a hissing like quality. "Poisssedon will reward me when I tell him I killed the God of the Deadsss sssspwan. Give the child to me and the ressst of you can crossss sssafely!."

The three demigods huddled closely together frozen in fear. They were standing on a narrow bridge, two hundred feet above a lake with a giant sea serpent threatening to attack. Despite the three on one odds in a fight, there was still a high probability the massive serpent would kill them all if it came down to a battle.

"We have to run," said Percy, his body trembling. "Our only chance at safety is if we make it to the other side of the bridge. We have to run as fast as possible and hope we make it across before the serpent catches us."

"You're right," replied Luke, a look of determination on his face. "Nico, you stay in the middle of Percy and I. It's the safest spot. We'll all have our weapons and hopefully we can fend off any attacks by the serpent."

The three demigods discretely grabbed their weapons out of their packs and then let their packs drop to the ground. While their packs were important, the excess weight would slow them down when running. They still had about eight hundred feet to run before making it safety and every bit of speed mattered. Their packs could be replaced. Their lives couldn't.

After a quick three to one countdown from Luke, the demigods began to run across the bridge. Percy was in the front armed with his knives. Nico ran in the middle armed with his baton. Luke took up the rear with his dagger, which had already been used to kill a Fury, two Karpoi and a minotaur. He hoped he would soon be adding a sea serpent to that list.

As soon as the three demigods began running, the serpent launched its attack. At first, the serpent tried to knock the demigods off the bridge by hitting its large body against the bridge's support beams that extended down to the floor of the lake. Although hitting the supports caused the bridge to sway to and fro, the attack did not have enough force to slow the demigods' run.

Realizing that its current tactic was ineffective, the monster switched plans. Diving under the water, it swam away from the bridge until it was about 1000 feet away. Then, switching directions, it swam back towards the bridge. Using the momentum it gained while swimming, the serpent launched itself out of the water and towards the demigods running on the bridge.

Luke was the first to see what the serpent was doing.

As quickly as possible he yelled, "Stop! Get down and duck!"

The three demigods abruptly came to a halt and crouched down as low as possible. Huddling together to make as small of a target as possible, they then continued to move across the bridge inching across the tracks on their knees. Every so often, they would turn to face the water checking on of the serpent's attack.

Unfortunately for the demigods, the accuracy of the serpent's attack was dead on. The serpent launched itself out of the water slightly behind the demigod's current position. By the time the monster's head had reached as high as the bridge, it was located directly in line with three demigods. With one giant sweeping motion, the serpent sent the three demigods flying off the bridge.

As the the three demigods plunged toward the water they searched for anything to hold onto to stop their fall. Percy was the luckiest. As he was falling, the serpent's tail wrapped around him almost gently. As his fall was stopped, he swore he heard a voice in his head hissing, _"I will make sure that you are safe, my prince._"

Luke on the other hand was able to grab onto the serpent's neck as he fell. Although the monster's scales were slippery, he was able to use the spikes protruding from the serpent's back as grips. As he hung on for dear life with one hand, he repeatedly used the dagger in his other hand to stab the serpent's backside hoping to do as much damage as possible. As soon as the serpent reached the water once again, he let go and began to swim towards shore.

As Luke swam for shore he began to search for his other companions. While falling, he had seen the serpent grab Percy using its tail. From his vantage point in the water, he could see Percy was still trapped by that tail. Surprisingly, the monster didn't seem to be do anything to harm Percy. Instead, it seemed to be trying to keep Percy out of the battle as it swam around the lake searching for where Nico had fallen.

Luke was unable to locate Nico until he heard a soft groaning noise coming from above him. Looking up, he saw the son of Hades clutching onto one of the bridge's supports. Luke assumed that Nico must have grabbed on when he was knocked off the bridge and had been hanging there since. Although Nico was too far away to hear him, Luke was able to make eye contact with the frightened boy. Giving him the thumbs up symbol, Luke tried to show the young demigod that he would continue to fight and defeat the monster so that Nico could eventually safely let go and land in the water.

Unfortunately, there was little Luke could directly do for Nico. He was too high up and it would have been impossible for Luke to climb up the slippery bridge support to reach him. Percy could do nothing either as although he was unharmed and seemingly out of danger, he was unable to free himself from the grip of the serpent's tail.

Instead, Luke decided to focus on attacking the serpent directly. His previous attacks to the serpent's back had been successful in doing some damage and by the way the monster was moving, it was clearly wounded in pain. As the serpent swam through the water searching for Nico, Luke wondered how much more damage he would have to impart before the serpent was defeated and turned to dust.

Because the serpent's attention was focused on finding Nico, it was easy for Luke to swim into the general vicinity of the monster without being noticed. As soon as he got within ten feet of the creature, Luke launched his attack. Taking a deep breath, he dove under the water. Positioning himself directly in line with the serpent's slender body, he swam under the massive creature until he had a clear strike at the serpent's unprotected underside. Using all the strength he could muster, Luke struck the serpent with his dagger hoping he had hit the heart or some other essential organ.

His attack was successful. As soon as the dagger had pierced the serpent's underbelly, the creature let out a high-pitched scream and began thrashing about. After surfacing for air, Luke again dove under the water again and continued his assault on the only unprotected portion of the monster's body.

From his vantage point hanging from one of the bridge's supports, Nico had a birds-eye view of the battle below him. As he saw Luke begin to attack the serpent from the water, Nico let himself hope that he would be able to escape from this attack unscathed. He had seen Luke give him the thumb's up symbol before, but at the time, the battle seemed lost. The monster appeared too strong for the one remaining demigod in the fight to successfully defeat him.

Luke's attack had one major unintended consequence. In severe pain, the sea serpent was no longer able to hold Percy's body protectively in its tail. As the serpent thrashed about in the water, its grip on Percy slowly loosened. Realizing this, Percy began to fight harder, using every bit of strength he could muster to free himself from the serpent's grip. Although the serpent had done nothing to harm him directly. Percy still wanted to free himself so he could aid in Luke's attacks on the monster.

Soon, the serpent's grip had loosened enough so that Percy could freely move his hands. Reaching down, Percy grabbed his knife from where it had fallen into his pocket. As he viciously stabbed at the monster's tail, its grip finally loosened enough from him to squiggle free.

After Percy was free, he continued to attack the serpent's tail. Unfortunately, he failed to take into account the position of the monster's poisonous stinger. While stabbing at the monster, Percy felt his hand graze a sharp object. Looking at his hand, Percy realized the serpent's stinger had broken through his skin.

Within seconds, it felt as though Percy's blood was on fire. Weakness spread through Percy's body and his limbs began to feel like lead weights. His thoughts became muddled and he could no longer fight the sleepiness that was overwhelming him. Falling into unconsciousness, Percy collapsed and landed across the serpent's tail. As the serpent thrashed about, the movement caused Percy's body to be launched into the air. He landed on the lake's shore in a crumpled heap, the lake's water slowly lapping across his downed form.

As he saw Percy being thrown from the water, Nico let out a cry of fear. Up until now, the serpent had been unable to find him. In fear for his life, Nico had unconsciously used one of the powers he had inherited as the son of Hades. Feeling their master's emotions, the shadows near Nico had wrapped themselves around him, hiding him from the view of his enemy. Unfortunately, his cry of fear had been heard by the monster and the shadows could no longer do anything to conceal his location.

Finally finding his target, the serpent used the last of his energy to launch an attack at Nico. Percy and Luke's repeated strikes had done their job and the serpent was slowly dying from blood loss. With the last bit of strength it possessed, the serpent launched itself from the water a final time, this time aiming its head at Nico's form. Opening its mouth, the serpent grabbed one of Nico's legs and dragged him into the water.

As soon as Nico hit the water, he began struggling to free himself from the serpent's grasp. Although the serpent was too distracted by Luke's attacks to do anything more than hold Nico in place, the young demigod still found it impossible to free himself. His leg was in intense pain and he was constantly being dragged under the water as the serpent moved to dodge Luke's strikes. Short on oxygen and losing blood rapidly, Nico sent a silent prayer to his father asking for him to look over him if he died. As he was pulled under the water one final time he lost consciousness. No longer able to control his muscles, Nico's mouth opened and water poured into the young boy's stomach and lungs.

While this was happening, Luke continued his relentless attack on the serpent. With the serpent's attention focused on holding onto Nico, the monster did little to dodge Luke' s strikes. As the serpent's movements began to slow, Luke realized the monster was near death. With a final strike, Luke watched in awe as the two hundred foot long serpent let out an inhuman screech of rage. Seconds later, all that remained of the monster was a layer of gold dust slowly falling from the sky to the lake's surface.

Realizing the fight was over, Luke yelled out to his companions. The last he had seen, Nico was holding onto a bridge support and Percy was trapped by the serpent's tail. Looking around the lake however, he didn't see or hear his companions anywhere. Concerned, he began to rapidly swim to shore, hoping to gain a better vantage point from which to search.

When he was about fifty yards from shore, Luke bumped into a large object floating in the water. Surfacing, Luke opened his eyes and realized he had just swam into Nico's bloody form. As he attempted to wake the young demigod, Luke grew increasingly concerned when all his attempts failed. Making sure he had a secure grip on the boy, Luke dragged Nico's body the rest of the way to shore where he pulled him out of the water.

Upon exiting the water, Luke was shocked to find Percy's body not twenty feet away from him. Running over to his friend, Luke was surprised to note that Percy appeared completely uninjured. While the boy was unconscious, his chest was rising up and down showing that he was breathing. His clothes were torn to shreds, yet there was not one visible mark on his body. Deciding to investigate the mystery later, Luke turned his attention back to Nico.

Unfortunately, in the seconds Luke's attention had been on Percy, Nico's skin color had changed from pale tan to light grey. Nico was not breathing and showed no signs of life whatsoever. Feeling tears forming in his eyes, Luke began to perform CPR on the young boy. For the next ten minutes, Luke tried to save the Son of Hades' life.

Sadly, Luke's efforts were in vain. No matter what Luke did, Nico refused to stir. Realizing that Nico was gone, Luke collapsed to the ground clutching the young boy's body. Letting out an anguished scream, Luke began to sob uncontrollably.

"Damn you Zeus and Poseidon!" he screamed, his words dripping with anguish. "You win! You killed the boy. Someday, I swear on the Styx, I will make you pay!"

**UNTIL THE END OF TIME**

Hades, Hestia and Apollo were gathered in the Underworld watching the progress of Luke and Percy's quest in Hades' viewing pool. Apollo had just returned from checking on the three boys following the minotaur attack and had reported that he had visited Luke in his dream. The three young demigods were now hiking through the desert so that they could catch the next train when it departed from the station in Fernley.

Thus far, the three Gods were pleased with how the quest was progressing. While the demigods had faced a myriad of obstacles including a variety of monsters and the security guards at the Lotus Casino, the boys had successfully overcome each challenge they faced. Overall, Hades was pleased that he had chosen Luke and Percy to accompany Nico to Alaska. The three boys had become fast friends and Hades knew that his son had made life long allies.

While the Gods continued to watch the hike, Hades decided to broach a subject that had been on his mind since the Olympian Council had voted to kill Nico. He needed to know if Apollo and Hestia would support him if he opposed Zeus' rule of Olympus. He knew it was a dangerous topic to speak of since Zeus had forbidden any Gods to actively seek to change how Olympus was ruled. Doing so was considered treason, and if caught, the offender would be immediately sent to Tartarus. Still, he knew his nephew and sister were extremely dissatisfied with Zeus' vote to kill his son. He only hoped they would listen to his ideas with an open mind.

Clearing his throat to draw the other two's attention away from the viewing pool, Hades began to speak.

"As you three know, Zeus has gotten too power hungry," he began. "We need to do something to stop him. I know this seems drastic, but over the past two centuries Zeus and the rest of the Council have grown less and less rational. They've become drunk with power and no longer listen to reason. We are banned from seeing our children and they are thrown away as tools. We need to do something, and soon, before things get any worse."

Hestia and Apollo shared concerned glances. While they both wholeheartedly agreed with Hades, they knew that Zeus and the Olympic Council would not be swayed by logical arguments and peaceful solutions. In the past, many of the Gods had tried to force Zeus to become a more fair and just ruler. Each time he was confronted, Zeus promised to do so and then broke that promise the next time a situation or argument didn't go his way. After ruling for millenias, Zeus was set in his ways. A full scale war against Olympus might be the only way to bring about real change.

Looking resolute, Apollo was the first to speak.

"I agree with you Uncle H," he stated, his tone far more serious than usual. "And I know that you're talking about war. I'm sad that it's gotten to this, but Zeus is no longer fit to rule. His decision to kill Nico was the final straw. I don't want to fight against my family, but I'm willing to do so to bring about change. My oracle has given many recent prophecies about a great change coming soon and I think this may just be the change that she was speaking of."

Hades reached over to Apollo and in a surprising display of affection gave him a hug. Apollo had always been his favorite nephew. While many saw Apollo as nothing more than a fun-loving blowhard, Hades had always seen a deeper side to the God. Constantly burdened with prophecies that he could do nothing to change, Apollo had created much of his exterior personality as a mask. In reality, the God of the Sun was extremely intelligent and was one of the most caring people that Hades had met. Knowing this, the God of the Underworld was extremely glad to have him on his side in the upcoming fight.

Turning his attention to Hestia, Hades wondered what his sister would think of his plan. As the Goddess of the Hearth, Hestia had always strived to be non-judgemental towards their family members. It was the main reason that besides Apollo, she was the only one to fully accept him. While the others feared him for his power (he was the eldest of the Big Three), Hestia knew that Hades only used his power when absolutely necessary. She too had expressed growing discontentment with Zeus, yet she abhorred fighting and wars.

After a moment of silence following Apollo's declaration, the Goddess of the Hearth spoke up.

"Sadly, I must agree as well," she said, a silent tear falling from her eye. "Our family is broken and in my heart I know it can't be mended. What Zeus and the majority of the council do to stay in power is wrong. They treat their subjects like trash. If it comes to a fight, I will stand beside you and Apollo."

For the next hour, the three Gods brainstormed ideas about how to bring about change to Olympus in the least violent manner possible. Most importantly, the three knew they would need allies. Hestia, Hades and Apollo knew that they had no where near enough power to take on the other eleven major Gods if it came to a full scale war. While they were sure they could get many of the minor Gods to side with them, they would still need additional support. They just didn't know where to get it from.

While they were discussing this, Hades noticed a change in the viewing pool. Pausing the discussion for a moment, he took a closer look. The surface of the pool had become cloudy and Hades could no longer see a clear picture of what was occurring on the quest.

He immediately knew what had happened. Since Hades was the Lord of the Underworld, he had very little power on Earth. While he could see what was happening on land, he could not see events that occurred over water or in the sky. These were his brothers' domains and they jealously guarded their power. Thus Hades knew that the quest was being forced to travel over water or into the sky.

After a couple minutes of cloudiness, Hades became concerned. Crossing over a bridge only took a minute and it was unlikely that the quest was in the sky. Therefore, it was highly likely that Percy, Luke and Nico had encountered some sort of problem while crossing a body of water. Otherwise, the viewing pool would have already returned to clarity.

Expressing his concerns to Apollo and Hestia, Hades snapped his fingers, making a map of the quest's route appear. From what he could discern, the three demigods had most likely encountered problems while crossing the Lahontan Reservoir. Fearing for the safety of his son and his new friends, Hades asked Apollo to go and observe the situation. If the three were injured, Apollo would be the best for treating those injuries.

Agreeing to do so, Apollo grabbed the map. After choosing a vantage point to observe from, he quickly gathered his healing supplies. He also took his bow in case he had to aid in a fight. Then, with a snap of his fingers, Apollo flashed away to the desert of Northern Nevada.

**UNTIL THE END OF TIME**

Apollo arrived in Northern Nevada seconds after flashing out of the Underworld. He had chosen to observe the quest from the edge of a cliff about two hundred yards north of the lake. From his viewing spot, he could see both the entire bridge and the majority of the water below. It was the perfect vantage point to see any action occurring in or above the lake.

Apollo could immediately tell that the quest was in trouble. A giant sea serpent was repeatedly hitting the bridge and the quest members were crouched low and holding on for dear life. Even though they were in danger, Apollo knew he could not interfere yet. If he interfered, Zeus would be immediately informed. That would lead Zeus right to the location of Hades' son and at that point, there would be nothing Apollo could do to save the boy from death. Because of this, Apollo was forced to watch and wait.

It soon became apparent to Apollo that the three demigods were struggling to defeat the monster. The serpent had successfully knocked them from the bridge and had captured one in his tail. The son of Hades was clutching onto one of the bridge's supports, and the other demigod was the only one able to fight. While he was getting some good blows in, Apollo knew his attacks weren't doing enough damage to truly harm the sea serpent.

Deciding to move closer, Apollo began to inch himself towards the lake. As he moved, he kept one eye on the fight so that he could continuously observe the demigods' progress. Suddenly, he saw the serpent rear its head out of the water and launch itself at the son of Hades. Apollo watched in horror as the serpent grabbed the boy's leg in his mouth and dragged him underwater.

Realizing that the members of the quest were in imminent danger of dying, Apollo began to sprint towards the fight. Zeus be damned, he was going to do what he could to save these innocent demigods. He wanted to flash so he could arrive quicker, but he knew it was demigods weren't expecting him. If they happened to be looking at the spot he flashed to, they would instantly die.

As he continued to sprint towards the lake, Apollo saw the monster explode into golden dust. While he was relieved that the monster had been defeated, he knew the demigods were most likely seriously injured from their fight. He couldn't slow his pace down now.

Arriving near the river, Apollo saw one of the demigods lying unconscious on the side of the lake. The other two were in the water, the also unconscious form of the son of Hades being dragged to shore by the final demigod. Since there was no visible path from the shore to the bridge area (which was 200 feet in elevation above the shore), Apollo had to slowly make his way down the steep and treacherous cliff face.

When he arrived at the bottom five minutes later, he was met by a somber sight. The son of Hades was lying motionless on the ground. His skin was grey and his lips were blue. One of the other two demigods was clutching onto him, alternating between heart wrenching loud sobs and moments of silence. The other demigod was lying about twenty feet away. Although he was unconscious, Apollo could easily tell he was alive. His chest was rising and falling and his skin looked tan and healthy.

Quietly walking over to the deceased son of Hades, Apollo kneeled on the ground. He then cleared his throat catching the attention of the other demigod.

"Lord Apollo?" asked Luke, his voice wavering between bouts of tears. "Why are you here? What are we going to do? Nico's dead! Lord Hades is going to be devastated - we... I mean I... failed him. I'm so sorry. I tried to save him. I really did. There was nothing I could do and now he's dead and Percy's injured. Why did Poseidon do this? Why is Zeus so cruel?"

In an attempt to comfort the young boy, Apollo pulled the demigod into a hug. As he soothingly rubbed circles on Luke's back, the demigod began to calm down, his loud sobs turning into quiet sniffles. Exhausted from the fight and the emotional trauma of seeing Nico die, Luke appeared emotionally drained and physically spent. As Apollo continued to comfort and reassure him, the demigod slowly fell asleep.

Gently laying down the now sleeping demigod on a blanket he conjured, Apollo moved over to check on Percy. He was surprised to see that the boy appeared to be injury free. While the demigod was unconscious, there wasn't a single visible injury on his body. Based on the fight Apollo had just witnessed, that would have assumed that to be impossible.

Picking the demigod up in his arms, Apollo carried the boy to the blanket and laid him down next to his friend. He did the same with the body of Nico, pausing for a moment to conjure a second blanket that he wrapped the body in. Once the two alive demigods and the dead body were all side by side, Apollo placed his arm across all three, so that so part of each demigod was touching him. With a snap of his fingers, the three flashed away from the scene. Next stop: the Underworld. Apollo definitely wasn't looking forward to his upcoming conversation with Lord Hades.

**TO BE CONTINUED**

**Author's Note - **That's it for Chapter 7 folks. I hope you enjoyed. I know that some of you are going to be unhappy that I killed Nico. Unfortanately, it was necessary for the plot. Right now, Hades is mad at the Olympians and wants a change. He needs something to really kickstart his quest for vengence though. And remember what I said before - he is the Lord of the Underworld. He may still have a few tricks up his sleeve. So now that you're done reading, please **REVIEW, FAVORITE, and FOLLOW. **And make sure (if you haven't already) to respond to my poll questions. They are listed below.

**Poll Question #1 - Who should Ethan N be paired with? It can either be a gay or a straight pairing (although I'm leaning towards slash myself). In the books, Ethan was the one-eyed son of Nemesis who fought on the Titans side. In my story, he will definitely be against the Olympians and fighting with Percy and Luke. He's going to be a pretty major character.**

**Poll Question #2 -Who should Annabeth be paired with? It can be either a gay or straight pairing. I don't know yet if Annabeth will be with or against Percy and Luke. I'm leaning towards against -if you have a view, let me know!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note - **Hi folks! I'm back with Chapter 8. Sorry it took me so long to update - I promise that it won't take me longer than a week to update normally. Unfortanately, I got stuck with a bit of writer's block when I was working on this chapter. My dad also came to visit me and that distracted me for a couple of days. So that's why this update took longer than usual. But, I'm finally done with the chapter so I hope you enjoy. We get a little insight in how Poseidon's mind works along with seeing Hades' reaction to the news that Nico is dead. We also get our first glimpse at how Nico may reappear later in this story. Thanks to everyone who left reviews, follows and favorites for last chapter. I greatly appreciate all of the support that I get. So please, when you're done reading this chapter, **REVIEW, FOLLOW and FAVORITE. **Just clikc that small button at the bottom of the page - it only takes a minute or two. Can we try to get 10 of each **REVIEWS, FOLLOWS and FAVORITES **for this chpater. It would be awesome if we could. Enjoy reading! Also - if you haven't done so already, answer the poll questions in a review. They are posted at the end of the chapter. The poll is open until Chapter 10 is posted.

**Beta Note - **My chapters are being betaed by the wonderful _**MarissaTodd**_.

**Chapter Warnings** \- Mentions of sex and mature language

"Blah Blah" - Character's Speech

_Blah Blah - Character's Thoughts_

**CHAPTER 8**

Lord Poseidon, God of Seas, was not having a good day. The previous evening, he had hosted a party in Atlantis to celebrate 4000 years of marriage to his wife, Amphirite. During the party, his adviser Delphin had informed him that the spirit of a demigod he had sired hundreds of years ago had been caught trying to sneak out of the Underworld.

Amphirite had overheard this and had become irate at being reminded of an example Poseidon's previous infidelity on their anniversary. Poseidon had attempted to calm her down. In his intoxicated state however, he had decided the best method to do so would by comparing the number of demigods he had sired to the number Zeus had. Needless to say, Amphirite was none too pleased to be informed that Poseidon had only fathered around 50 bastard children, while his brother Zeus had fathered hundreds.

His wife had stormed off from the party in a jealous rage. Poseidon, alone and angry, had continued to drink heavily for the rest of the night. When the party finished, Poseidon had attempted to find his wife so that he could placate her with a round of make-up sex. Unfortunately, Amphirite had locked him out of their bedroom. He had been forced to spend the night alone and horny on a small couch in the sitting room.

Poseidon awoke early the next morning with a raging hangover. Still locked out of his bedroom, he was unable to retrieve the hangover cure he had placed on his dresser the night before. He had spent the rest of the morning in urgent meetings, tired and irritable from the aftereffects of last night's drinking.

It was now 3pm and Poseidon had still had had no luck in speaking to his wife. While his hangover had begun to recede, he knew his wife's anger hadn't. Delphin had reported that Amphirite had left Atlantis early that morning immediately after the Sea God's first meeting began. He had sent various messengers to plead with her to return, but thus far, all had been ignored.

Poseidon was sitting in his office, contemplating whether to go to his wife himself, when his musings were interrupted by the arrival of Salzander, King of the Sea Serpents. According to Salzander, one of his many sons had spotted the son of Hades travelling with two companions in Northern Nevada. Knowing that Zeus had ordered the son of Hades' death, Salzander's son attacked the three demigods when they attempted to cross a bridge that spanned over the lake he lived him.

Both Salzander's son and the son of Hades had been killed in the fight. While the other two demigods had lived, they were both injured in the fight. A nearby nereid who had observed the fight had reported what she had seen to Salzander. According to the nereid, the other two demigods had been flashed away by an unknown God minutes after the fight ended.

The nereid had gone on to tell Salzander that the Serpent King's son had tried to protect one of the three demigods during the fight. When that demigod had fallen off the bridge, Salzander's son had caught him with his tail and kept him safely away from the fight. He only released his hold when the attacks from the third demigod became too painful to bear. According to the nereid, the protected demigod smelt strongly of the sea. That meant he was one of Poseidon's mortal children.

"Why was my son travelling with that bastard child of Hades?" roared Poseidon, slamming his fist onto his desk in anger. "I only have one demigod child and he is seven years old. He should be safely at home with his mother! This is somehow Hades' doing. I know it!"

Despite his outward appearance of rage, inside, Poseidon was more worried than anything about his son. The Lord of the Seas knew very well that he had only sired one demigod child since making the pact with Zeus and Hades. Sally Jackson had been a queen among mortals and he would have gladly divorced Amphirite if Sally had agreed to become his immortal consort. Even though she had refused, they had continued to see each other until she had given birth.

Once Sally had given birth to Percy, it had become too dangerous for Poseidon to continue seeing her. Zeus was known to track his movements from time to time, and he didn't want Sally or her child to suffer the fate of Hades' lover, Maria. Even so, Poseidon had continued to discreetly check-up on Sally's well-being. The last report he received two weeks ago had stated that everything was fine. She and Percy were living in New York City with a mortal named Gabe Ugliano.

_Why then, is Percy traveling with the son of Hades_, Poseidon wondered. _And more importantly, how did the two of them meet? There's no way it could be a coincidence. There are tens of thousands of demigods out there. Up until a couple of days ago, Hades' son was trapped in the Lotus Casino. Him getting out and meeting my son is damn well no coincidence._

He knew Sally would never have agreed to the two demigods meeting. She knew that Percy's life would be in danger if Zeus ever discovered his existence. It was the reason she had married Gabe despite his detestable personality and hygiene. His atrocious scent was strong enough to ensure that monsters didn't smell Percy's scent and attack him. It also prevented satyrs from smelling and finding Percy.

Poseidon also knew that Percy should be unaware of his demigod heritage. He and Sally had agreed to tell him the truth when he turned twelve. They would send him to Camp Halfblood to get training. Then, Poseidon's heir Triton, would claim Percy as his child. Triton's and Poseidon's scents were similar enough to fool anyone but a creature of the water (and they were all loyal to Poseidon anyways).

While Triton usually hated his father's demigod children, for some reason he had taken a liking to Percy when he met him as a baby. Triton had been the one to check up on Percy and Sally as Percy grew up and he had expressed excitement at getting to know his baby brother when he turned twelve. It had been the perfect plan. Percy would get the training he needed and would be off of Zeus' radar for good.

_Something must have happened to Sally_, Poseidon concluded. _It's the only conceivable reason why Percy is travelling with two other demigods through the desert of Nevada. I need to find out what happened, now!_

After thanking Salzander for his information, Poseidon dismissed the King of the Sea Serpents from his office. Before leaving, Salzander was pleased to find out that his family would be rewarded since his son had died a hero's death by killing the forbidden son of Hades. Salzander was also sworn to secrecy on the penalty of death about informing anyone about Percy's existence.

Although Poseidon was sure the creatures of the sea wouldn't betray him, he couldn't risk the news about Percy travelling to any other animals. Birds for instance, had overheard sea gossip before. Since birds (as creatures of the sky) were loyal to Zeus, that gossip had inevitably found its way to him as well. Poseidon dreaded to think what would happen if Zeus found out about Percy. Since Zeus had ordered the son of Hades killed, he would have no choice but to order the same thing for Percy. Poseidon would be damned if he let that happen!

Slumping down in his chair once Salzander was gone, Poseidon let out a long sigh and then grabbed a key from its hiding spot in the back of one of his bookshelves. He opened a locked drawer in the file cabinet and pulled out a pile of papers and photos. This was all of the information he kept on Percy and Sally following his separation from the two after Percy's birth.

After scanning through the info, Poseidon was still baffled as to why Percy was not safely at home in New York City with Gabe and Sally. Nothing in the file indicated that Sally had any intention of deviating from their plan on when to inform Percy about his demigod heritage. Everything had appeared okay the last time Triton had checked on them. According to his heir, things were business as usual when it came to Poseidon's son and former lover.

Realizing that he was never going to get to the bottom of this mystery from his office in Atlantis, Poseidon called Triton to his office. After a couple of moments of silence, Triton appeared in front of his father. He looked breathless, like he had just run a long distance.

The Sea King's heir reported that Poseidon, had failed to reign in control of his emotions when he found out that Percy was not safely in New York. The Lord of the Seas' emotions had then spilled over and began affecting the weather. Twenty foot tidal waves were reported in Japan and a large hurricane developed in the Caribbean. Flooding was even reported in areas that hadn't seen rain in years. Triton had been working to repair the damage when his father called.

Concerned about his father's state of mind, Triton inquired as to what had upset the God so much. After listening to his father's explanation, Triton's emotions soon mirrored those of Poseidon. The God of the Seas had tasked Triton with watching over his demigod son and as of now, it looked as though he had failed.

After promising to immediately go and check on the situation, Triton left Poseidon's office, once again leaving the God by himself. Shaking his head, Poseidon realized that there was nothing he could do until Triton came back with more information. Until then, all he could do was wait.

Instead, Poseidon decided to inform that other Olympians about his success in eliminating the forbidden son of Hades. While he himself hadn't actually done the killing, it was done by a member of domain so he would get the credit. With a snap of his fingers, Poseidon flashed away from his palace in Atlantis. Seconds later, he appeared on Olympus, inside the foyer near the Olympic Throne Room.

After entering and sitting on his throne, Poseidon threw a drachma in a nearby fountain and messaged Iris, the Minor Goddess of Rainbows. He told her to tell each member of the Olympic Council to come to throne room immediately for an emergency meeting. Twenty minutes later, all of the Olympians had arrived and the meeting was ready to begin.

**UNTIL THE END OF TIME**

Hades and Hestia were pacing nervously in the throne room of the Underworld. Ten minutes prior, Apollo had left to go check on the progress of Percy and Luke's quest to get Nico to safety in Alaska. Hades' viewing pool had gone cloudy while the three were crossing a bridge in Northern Nevada, and Hades was worried about what obstacles they were facing. Both Gods hoped Apollo would return soon and with good news.

As Hades paced, scenarios of Nico's death filtered through his mind. He still was in shock that 11 out of the 12 Gods on the Olympic Council had voted to kill his son. At one time, he had called these people his family. Now, without even a by-your-leave, they were willing to damn his innocent son to death. As much as it pained him to admit it, he knew he would never receive the acceptance he had sought for thousands of years from the majority of his family. He was the feared Lord of the Underworld and nothing he could do would change that. He would only be treated with respect once the majority of the Olympic Council was gone. Sadly, that meant overthrowing them. After all, the rest of the Olympians would never willingly give up their power.

_I don't even mind being Lord of the Underworld_, he thought, laughing internally at the notion that Zeus believed he wanted to rule the skies._ I never wanted to be King. All I asked for was a say in the decision making process and they couldn't even grant me that. I'm the eldest of the Big 3 and I can only visit Olympus once per year. The rest of the time, I'm stuck in the Underworld. I can't even see my wife and she can't visit thanks to Demeter. At least Kronos didn't hide behind facades of justice and democracy like the Olympians do. Everyone knew exactly what type of ruler he was and he just didn't care._

While he was grateful for the help of both Apollo and Hestia, Hades worried about the eventual confrontation that would occur with Olympus. In the past, he had allowed the rest of the Olympians to walk all over him. He was done with that. If they were willing to kill an innocent child, he was willing to go to war with them.

Still. he knew he would need allies beyond just Hestia and Apollo. While they had vowed to stand with him no matter what, the combined might of the other eleven Olympians was great. They would need additional help and scarily, he knew that the overthrown Titans were his best bet. For thousands of years, they had wanted to rise up against those who thrown them from power. He knew that if he gave them the opportunity to fight, they would agree. It was just a matter of ensuring they didn't double cross him once the battle was won. He didn't want to just trade one dictatorship for another. Hades wanted to see actual change brought to Olympus.

Hades' musings were interrupted by a flash of bright light in the corner of the throne room. Apollo had just returned from checking on the progress of the three demigods as they crossed a bridge in Northern Nevada. Hades quickly noticed that Apollo wasn't alone however. Instead, all three members of the quest had also appeared in the Lord of the Dead's throne room.

Upon closer examination, the Lord of the Underworld became concerned when he noted that only Luke was standing up. After flashing in, Luke was the only one who had risen from a lying position on the floor. Percy and Nico were still in that position and his son's body was wrapped in a blanket.

Rushing over to check on his son, Hades asked Apollo, "What the hell happened? Why did you bring all three demigods back here? I may control the Underworld, but none of them are safe here. Zeus is watching my every move and it won't take long for him to find out that three demigods were brought here."

Apollo was silent for a moment, deciding how to best answer Hades' question. Even though he was a God, Apollo still had a healthy fear of Hades' rage. The God of the Sun knew that Hades wouldn't react well to the news of his son's death. To prevent the Underworld's King from entering one of his infamous rages, Apollo would have to break the news gently. He just didn't know how.

As Apollo was contemplating how to break the news to Hades, said Lord of the Underworld was becoming more and more concerned. He could tell that the only conscious member of the quest was in shock. Since flashing in with Apollo, Luke had said nothing. He had simply stood next to Apollo and hidden his face in his hands. Every so often, Hades could hear soft whimpers coming from the son of Hermes.

Even more concerning was his son. When he tried to get closer to Nico to check on him, Apollo had blocked his path. Instead, the God of the Sun had lead Hades back to his throne.

_Something's gone terribly wrong_, thought Hades, as he sat in his throne waiting for Apollo to tell him what happened. A_pollo usually won't shut up. Now, he appears with all three members of the quest and won't say anything. And he won't even let me see my son. This can't be good._

After a couple of moments of silence, Hades lost his patience with Apollo.

"Dammit Apollo," he bellowed, rising from his throne and moving menacingly towards the God of the Sun. "Tell me what happened. I know something is wrong. Waiting is just making it worse."

"Well... I don't know how to say this," began Apollo in a meek voice. "But the quest encountered a giant sea serpent in Nevada. Percy and Luke tried to protect Nico, but they weren't successful. They were able to kill the monster, but not before it attacked and killed Nico. I'm sorry Hades. Thanks to Poseidon, your son is dead."

For Hades, it was if time stood still. He could hear what Apollo was saying, yet his brain could not comprehend the meaning of the words. Just days before, he had been able to reintroduce himself to his son after decades of not being able to see him. Once Nico was safely in Alaska, he was going to be able to start building a relationship with his son. Now, because of his damnable brother, he had lost that chance.

As the full meaning of Apollo's words finally sunk in, Hades fell to his knees tears streaming from his eyes.

_My son is gone,_ he thought, his entire body shaking. _Never again will I get to see him laugh or play or even grow up. What type of parent am I if I can't even keep my only son safe?_

For a brief moment, Hades thought about blaming Percy and Luke for the death of Nico. After all, he had trusted Nico's safety to them and they had failed. They had told him that they would protect Nico with their lives and yet they lived, while he died.

As he gazed towards the unconscious form of Percy and the sobbing form of Luke however, those thoughts receded from his mind. Rationally, he knew the two demigods weren't to blame. They were just as much victims as he was. Both demigods had barely known Nico, yet they had fought to the best of their ability to protect his life. They had risked their own lives to protect his son. No, the blame solely lied with his brothers and the rest of the Olympic Council. They were the ones who had voted to murder an innocent child.

As Hades continued to muse, both Apollo and Hestia became worried. Hades wasn't the type to be silent when angered or saddened. Instead, he was notorious for his all-consuming rage when things didn't go his way. Entire cities had been leveled for something as minor as a spirit successfully escaping the Underworld. What the two were seeing wasn't Hades typical behavior, and frankly, it was unnerving.

Finally, after a couple more minutes of awkward silence, Hestia decided to speak up.

"Brother," she began, her words gentle and compassionate, "I know that you're not okay. You just lost your son and for that you have my sympathy. Losing a child is something that no parent should ever have to experience. That being said, standing here silently grieving won't help anything. We must prepare Nico's body for burial and decide what to do with Luke and Percy. Please, tell Apollo and I what you are thinking."

Hestia's words seemed to snap Hades out of his moment of grief. After conjuring a handkerchief and wiping the tears from his eyes, Hades stood up and began pacing. After taking a minute to compose his thoughts, he spoke.

"You are right as always sister," he said. "There is nothing I can do now except trudge onwards. While I am angered and saddened, I must focus those energies into something productive. There are two living demigods in my realm that need to be attended to first and foremost."

Looking to Apollo, Hades said, "I have a small infirmary in my palace. Can you take Luke and Percy there? They can be treated for their wounds and rest there until they are recovered. Once they have healed, we can decide the best course of action in terms of what to do with them."

Nodding his ascent, Apollo kneeled in front of Luke. Gently, he helped the grieving demigod to his feet. Together, the two lifted Percy's body from the ground and carried him to a bed in the infirmary where he could be treated by Apollo. Luke also laid down in a bed and was asleep seconds after lying down, the physical and mental exhaustion of the battle with the sea serpent finally catching up with him.

At the same time, Hestia and Hades began to prepare to Nico's body for burial. As they were about to place his body in a kiln so it could be cremated, Hades was struck with an idea.

"I know I can't return Nico's soul to his body myself," he told Hestia, motioning for her not to place Nico's body in the fire. "Doing so would violate the Ancient Laws and anger the Fates themselves. After all, even I am not stupid enough to anger them. What if however, we could change the events that happened today? We do know someone with power over time after all."

At first, Hestia appeared confused. Time wasn't a domain held by any of the major or minor Olympic Gods. Slowly however, the dawning realization of whom Hades was referring to hit her.

_Has Hades gone mad with grief,_ she thought, a disbelieving expression appearing on her face. _The only being with power over time is our father, Kronos. There's no way he could be talking about willingly going to him for help. We would have to reform his body and I shudder to think of the consequences of doing so. It would be pure madness._

Seeing Hestia's expression, Hades decided to speak up.

"By your face, I see you know who I'm talking about. It sounds crazy, but we're going to need allies in our fight against Olympus. Out of all of our siblings, you and I were the only two who didn't actively fight Kronos once we escaped his stomach. We are the only two who could approach him and even have a chance of him not reacting in immediate violence. If we were able to get Kronos as our ally, he could easily bring Nico back to life as a show of goodwill. Plus, he'd be an extremely powerful ally. He's more powerful than Zeus and Poseidon combined. "

"But this is Kronos we're talking about," replied Hestia, the skepticism evident in her tone of voice. "I try to see the best in everyone and even I have trouble seeing the good in him. Yes, he would be a valuable ally and could do what you say, but at what cost? If we are even able to reform his body could we even trust him?"

Hades paused for a moment before answering. Hestia brought up a valid point. While any of the Titans would be valuable allies, trusting them would be another issue. The two groups had never gotten along and both sides would be just waiting for the other to stab them in the back.

"It's something we'd have to look into," replied Hades looking pensive. "There has to be some way that we can insure that he won't betray us. Mortals swear oaths on the Styx that can't be broken. Unfortunately, as we all know, immortals can easily break these oaths. Perhaps there's a similar, unbreakable oath for immortals. I wouldn't be surprised if there was. After all, if they knew about it, I doubt any of the other Olympians would want word to spread. Gods forbid that we as Gods actually stick to our word."

Just as Hestia was about to reply, Apollo flashed back into to throne room.

"Hestia and I need to leave now," he said, interrupting her and Hades' conversation. "I just got a message from Iris. Zeus has called a council meeting. I'm sure that Poseidon has informed him of Nico's death. She and I both need to be there."

"Of course," replied a sneering Hades. "Brother Zeus has to gloat after killing an innocent child. You two go to the meeting. I'll watch over Luke and Percy and begin to research the issue Hestia and I just discussed. When you two get back, we'll talk more."

Nodding their agreement, Hestia and Apollo flashed out of the Underworld. Seconds later, they arrived on Mount Olympus. They walked into the Council Room and took a seat on their throne waiting for Zeus' arrival. Shaking their heads, they shared a discrete glance. This wasn't going to be a fun meeting.

**UNTIL THE END OF TIME**

Zeus had just finished undressing when he was rudely interrupted by Iris, the Minor Goddess of Rainbows. Iris had flashed into his bedroom to inform him that his brother Poseidon had called a meeting of the Olympic Council to begin in twenty minutes. While Iris hadn't been informed of why the meeting was being called, she had been told that it was something major.

After grumbling and dismissing Iris from his bed chambers, Zeus began to get redressed. Looking sadly at the prostitute lying on his bed, Zeus realized that he would have to his fun with her later that evening.

"Poseidon had better have a damn good reason for interrupting my fun," he grumbled under his breath as he finished tying his tie. "I spent all afternoon finding the perfect mortal and now I'm being interrupted right before the fun actually begins. If this meeting isn't something important, Poseidon's going to regret having wasted my time."

Earlier that afternoon, Zeus had flashed down to New York City, intent on finding a mortal to sleep with. Hera was on her yearly vacation to the spa, and Zeus' libido was getting out of control. With no risk of being caught by his nosey wife, now was the perfect time to find a young and beautiful mortal to sleep with.

Unfortunately, Zeus had had no luck in finding a willing girl to come to bed with him. Despite making himself appear as a 24-year old, every girl he had met had rebuked his advances. After wasting five hours and hitting up seven bars, Zeus decided to call it quits. Apparently, most mortal women did not find dominating know-it-alls attractive. Although he rarely found a willing girl, it was a lesson Zeus had yet to learn.

Instead, the Lord of the Sky decided to employ the tried and true method of hiring a hooker. After finding a suitably attractive specimen to bed, he used his Godly power to place her in a trance. For the duration of the time she was with Zeus, she would do anything he commanded. In addition, she would have no memories of her liaison once she returned to the mortal world.

Zeus had flashed his date to his palace on Olympus. The two had only spent five minutes in bed together before they were rudely interrupted by Iris. After redressing and ensuring that the mortal in his bed was securely in her trance, Zeus departed for the Olympic Council Chambers.

Upon arriving, Zeus realized he was the last God to arrive. All eleven of the other Olympians plus Hestia were already in the Council Chamber. Realizing that they were waiting for him to start the meeting, Zeus gruffly called the Council to order.

"This emergency meeting of the Olympic Council has been called for by Poseidon," he declared.

Then, turning his attention to Poseidon's throne he added, "Brother, I do hope you have a good reason for calling this meeting. Most of us here do have better things to do than sit through long and pointless Council meetings. So tell us brother, why have you summoned us here?"

At Zeus' pronouncement, a couple members of the Council (notably Hermes and Ares) snickered under their breaths. Except for in emergencies, Zeus himself determined the frequency and duration of each Council meeting. It was a well-known fact that Zeus enjoyed hearing himself speak. Because of this, council meetings that could have lasted twenty minutes typically lasted two hours.

After waiting for the laughter to die down, Poseidon turned to his brother with a cheshire cat like grin and began to speak. Even though he had just found out that his only son was not safe at home, he still had to milk this situation for all it was worth. He and Zeus were fiercely competitive and getting the chance to one-up his brother in something as major as killing the forbidden son of Hades was something he would relish for years to come.

"My dear brother," Poseidon began, his somber tone not matching the grin on his face, "Just yesterday, you informed this council of a great threat to our power. A threat that you, in all your greatness, could not handle alone."

"Yes, of course," replied Zeus. "Everyone here was at the meeting and we all know about the forbidden son of Hades. Don't tell me you've called us here because you've somehow bungled up an attempt to kill him and now need our help?"

"Of course not," replied Poseidon, his smirk widening. "I've called you here to let you know that the threat has been eliminated. The son of Hades is dead. He was killed by a sea serpent when he attempted to cross a bridge in Northern Nevada. In less than one day, I have eliminated what could possibly be the greatest threat to our power this century."

Excited murmurs broke out amongst the other members of the Olympic Council. While each of the members beside Apollo had voted to kill Nico, in actuality, none of them had been to eager to carry out the task themselves. Yes, they all agreed that a potential threat to their power had to be eliminated, but actually killing a child was another thing.

Now however, Poseidon had done the dirty work for them. They could each return to their palaces secure in their rule of Olympus believing they had done nothing wrong. After all, they had merely voted to kill the son of Hades. It was one of Poseidon's creatures that had done the actual killing.

"But what proof do you have of this accomplishment?" asked Athena, the ever-skeptical Goddess of Wisdom.

"For all we know," added Zeus, "You could be in league with Hades. Together, you could be working to protect the child. Then years from now, when the child is trained, you two could bring him out of hiding. The rest of us Olympians would be woefully unprepared to defend ourselves from a threat we thought was dead. The whole purpose of this meeting could merely be to fool us into thinking Hades' son is no longer a threat."

With Zeus' words, Poseidon's smirk quickly changed into an expression of rage. Gripping his Trident, he rose from his throne and morphed into his Godly form.

"Do not doubt my words," he bellowed. "I am not a traitor. Over the years, I have done everything I can to ensure we Olympians remain in power. That includes keeping to my oath, unlike you Zeus."

A year prior, the Olympic Council had discovered that Zeus had broken his oath not to have children. A daughter of his, Thalia Grace, had attempted to seek shelter in Camp Halfblood. Before she could cross the border however, she had been attacked by a Minotaur. She had been gravely injured in the fight and even Camp Halfblood's healers couldn't save her. Rather than watch his daughter die, Zeus had transformed her into a pine tree, which now powered the camp's magical borders.

Although a Council meeting had been convened following the revelation, the rest of the Olympians had decided to let the matter slide. According to Zeus, he was the only one who could turn Thalia back to a human and he had no intention of doing so. Since Thalia would forever remain age 12, the age she had been when she was turned into a pine tree, the prophecy could not refer to her. She would never reach age 16.

Realizing there was little he could say to defend himself, Zeus backed down.

"Peace, brother," he stated in a placating manner. "I did not mean to sound as if I doubted your story. I only wish to know what happened to the forbidden child's body. Why have you not brought it here? We don't want Hades to discover it after all. Right now, he has no knowledge of what the Council has done and we want to keep it that way."

Morphing back to his human sized form, Poseidon's expression turned sour.

"Unfortunately, I cannot provide a body," he said. "We have a traitorous God in our midsts. After the child's death, my informant told me that his body, along with the live forms of his two companions was flashed away by an unknown God. I have yet to determine which God that was."

Looking suspiciously at each God seated in the chamber, Poseidon added, "Will all of you state an Oath on the Styx that it was not you who flashed away the boy's body?"

Unseen by the other Gods, Hestia and Apollo shared a concerned glance. Apollo was the God of Truth. Because of this, he was unable to lie. Sure, he could evade and not answer questions, but if he was directly asked a question, he could only tell the truth. Therefore, if Poseidon asked him if it was he who flashed away with Nico's body, he would have no choice but to tell the truth.

Realizing this, and hoping to avoid such a scenario, Hestia decided to speak up from her place by the hearth.

"May I add a few of my thoughts?" she asked Zeus, her musical voice calming each Olympian who heard it.

"Of course dear sister," he replied. "Your wisdom and input is always appreciated."

"We are all family here," Hestia stated. "Although we have our disagreements, we are still a family that works towards the same goal. Because of this, I know that I trust each and every member of the council. However, there are many minor Gods out there who are not directly part of this family. While I don't like to speak ill of others, perhaps it was one of them who took the son of Hades' body. It seems to be a much more likely scenario than a member of our family doing it."

Deciding to add his input, Apollo spoke up as well.

"I sense truth in what Hestia stated," he said. "Each of us here is family. If we can't trust our family, then who can we trust? As the God of Truth, I can tell that Poseidon is being honest. His serpent did kill the son of Hades and he doesn't know who took the body. Perhaps it would be best if we looked into Hestia's suggestion."

The other Gods nodded in agreement. Each of them had their secrets to hide and none wanted Zeus' focus on them for potentially being disloyal. It would be easiest for them all if the Lord of the Sky focused his attention on the minor Gods.

"Then it is settled," Zeus stated in a firm tone. "I commend Poseidon and his serpent for eliminating the son of Hades. He has all our gratitude. I shall investigate this matter of an unknown God and convene a council meeting when I have more info. For now, this meeting is over."

**TO BE CONTINUED**

**A/N** -That's it folks! Hope you enjoyed Chpater 8. I really promise to try and get Chapter 9 out quicker. Hopefully, my writer's block won't striked again. Let me know what you think about my idea for Kronos... Should he be able to bring back Nico? I'm also torn as to what type of personality Kronos would have. It will be different from the books for sure, but I'm not exactly sure how. So please, now that you're done reading, **REVIEW, FOLLOW and FAVORITE. **I'm shooting for 10 of each this chapter. Also - please answer my poll questions below in a review if you haven't done so already. Thanks!

**Poll Question #1 - **Who should Ethan N be paired with? He's going to be a major character on Percy and Luke's side. I'm leaning towards a SLASH pairing, but either SLASH or GEN is okay. In the books, he's the son of Nemesis with one eye who fights wtih the Titans.

**Poll Question #2 - **Who should Annabeth be paired wtih? I don't know if she'll be with or against Percy and Luke, but I'm leaning towards against. Again - either SLASH or GEN is okay.


End file.
